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Seeing Wasn't Believing
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
January 5, 1986
Last week there was a spectacular and clever international TV experiment pulled off by the talented and liberal Phil Donahue. The famous TV personality had flown to Seattle to broadcast from there a special exchange with a Russian version of a kind of Soviet "Phil Donahue" host who simultaneously broadcast from the U.S.S.R. The Soviet host was in manner and style strikingly like Donahue.
The broadcast was done similarly to ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel in that the Soviet personalities, politicians, news media types, etc., were shown right from their Russian studio via satellite. The program was entitled Citizen's Summit in keeping, of course, with the Reagan-Gorbachev political summit of just a few days before. It was without a doubt a clever and innovative idea, a type of which I'd guess we'll be seeing more in the future.
While I'm no particular fan of the knee-jerk liberal NBC show host, his is without doubt one of the most popular shown on modern major network television. He's got to be one of the industry's highest paid performers. Even though I flinch almost every time I see Donahue, I have to admire his ability and liberal presence of mind. When I say liberal it is not to suggest he's always bad, he's just always a left-leaning liberal.
Still, I must give Donahue his just desserts for trying to get a little balance and fairness between his talk show participants (in Seattle) and the Russians over there in the far away Soviet TV studio.
For example, as you might imagine, the subject of Afghanistan came up, but surprisingly it came in for some critical prompting by Donahue. He hung right in there also with his insistence that the Russian air force's shooting down of an unarmed civilian airliner (Korean Air Lines flight 007) should not have happened. If one of their civilian airliners had strayed over United States waters, he insisted, the American Air Force would not similarly have shot it down, i.e., shame on the Russians.
Oh yes, Donahue was properly soft spoken and guarded his speech ever so carefully so as not to unduly antagonize his Russian audience and host, but those talk shows go almost exactly as their clever showman hosts want them to go.
Donahue, to his credit, hung in there to make another good point: The Seattle audience, laden with liberal whimps and critics aplenty of American policies both foreign and domestic, had hurled criticism after criticism at the U.S. government all evening long. Not one substantive self-criticism of their politicians came from the Russian TV audience or talk show host. Donahue asked, "How come? Are you afraid of your government?" Hooray for Donahue!
The Soviet audience, loaded with men in business suits with their lapels laden with medals and decorations, was obviously a "stacked" audience along with some extraordinarily attractive females who were much more articulate than their American counterparts. They all appeared sincere and were convinced that they had "confidence" in their government because it always uses "good judgment."
Well, so much for the rather obvious hogwash and brainwash of the "people's" Soviet TV. It leaves one a bit puzzled, however.
If there is to be further "cultural" exchanges on satellite TV, and I assume there will no doubt be more to come (with stacked audiences and hopefully some not so stacked), one wonders how the Soviet warlords will view us. They are indeed aggressive and expansionist, you know, like it or not.
Hence will they interpret the draft dodgers, the dope lovers, the peace-at-any-pricers, and the welfare state free-loaders as a bunch of well-intentioned do-gooders who are no threat to them? Will this tend to make the warlords less apt to be aggressive or will they see the Donahue audiences as an easy mark for their "worker's paradise" and world domination?
It is, of course, hard to tell. One skilled observer was heard to say after watching the big screen in Donahue's studio on which the American and Soviet audience was shown all evening: "There should have been a bigger label under each country's audience screen. It was hard to tell for sure which audience was our own because the criticism of America was so severe on both screens."
Maybe that's why Donahue pushed a little harder this time for traditional America values than is typical on his regular daily TV show. Maybe that's why he felt he had to ask the U.S.S.R. audience, in effect, why their government is so afraid of freedom and individual responsibility, or maybe, just maybe, he is beginning to see that his American audiences have actually come to believe the liberal message he's been telling them all these many years, namely: "Oh yes, there is too such a thing as a free lunch."
Something for Everyone
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
January 12, 1986
It is difficult to ascertain just who and how many people read editorial pages. There are polls conscientiously taken that show almost half of the readers do. Then there are also some readers who know that it's the thing to say, i.e., it is somewhat fashionable to say one reads, thinks things out and therefore acts more wisely.
Whether or not one actually does read the Press-Tribune edit page or fibs about reading it, there are some real interesting people on it from time to time and some very interesting thoughts even if you don't entirely agree.
In fact, the controversial and diverse writers appearing on this page from time to time offer readers an opportunity seldom found on the pages of other newspapers not only on Sundays but during the week as well. This is especially so when those readers maintain a healthy skepticism, an intelligent curiosity and, upon occasion, maybe a sense of humor.
Last Tuesday's page was a case in point. Nicholas von Hoffman, a knee-jerk liberal particularly devoted to the kind of government that meddles in almost all walks of life except morals and national defense, was bellyaching in his regular flamboyant and exaggerated style.
This time it was about the economy which he alleged would soon enter this century's sequel to the Dark Ages. He thinks it's thanks mostly to Ronald Reagan, the absolute nemesis of "Mr. and Mrs. Yuppie." Says he "... unless one is willing to risk being stigmatized as a liberal or worse, one does not discuss the (declining) standard of living (above) the poverty line, the people who are supposed to be making it.
"But there are many million more office workers and sub-professionals ... who are being forced to take a second job."
He nit-picked further that Reagan has not quite ended inflation (it's still near 4 percent he grumbled).
But just down the same page came a conservative columnist with a view interestingly 100 percent opposite.
Paul Harvey, frequently an outspoken critic of the liberal media said: "But this is an election year ... inevitable carping and nit-picking and fault-finding will chip away at the public image of our now towering leader (Ronald Reagan)." Here's where we stand - really:
" ... least unemployment in years ... American workers working increased last month by another 180,000. The U.S. economy is so vigorous it has created 10 million new jobs in three years ... Inflation, the economic cancer, is in remission ... The headline says there were 31,334 business failures last year - most since the '30s." Hold the phone!
Twenty times that many new businesses were added.
"This is the happiest new year in three decades, the best in seven presidents."
Who is mostly correct? I don't know, but in Idaho it's hard to say which is coldest - the weather or the economy. Maybe the Russians are controlling both. In any event Harvey closes with: "As Mark Twain is said to have said about the music of Richard Wagner, 'It's not nearly so bad as it sounds.'"
All of which brings us to one of this page's frequently finest features, the "Guest Opinion." Last week's guest was Canyon County Sheriff Bill Anderson who says (contrary to the media's seemingly perennial preoccupation with courthouse capers) his office "has accomplished more with less."
The peppery and controversial college professor turned sheriff claims his "success is not by chance but by choice."
He writes that he has eliminated 13 unnecessary positions; decreased the 1986 budget by $113,000 under the 1985 budget; increased the crime-solving rate from 24 percent in 1984 to 34 percent in 1985; increased jail bookings from 2,695 in 1984 to 3,178 in 1985; increased driver's license bureau hours from nine hours a day to (now) 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; increased the number of patrol cars on the road by purchasing used cars. And many many more items were on his list.
Even if one believes only half of Sheriff Anderson's upward claims for 1985 they are fairly impressive. If the other half if weak or non-existent chances are that the local editor whose "Eye for an eye" editorial on the above-mentioned page praising, in part, U.S. Sen. Steve Symms for timely condemnation of Moammar Khadafy's terrorism, will hold his (the sheriff's) feet to his fire.
And then there was Press-Tribune's political reporter Sam Lang's insightful column on "... booze privatization" prospects via our Legislature. Sam is currently ensconced in the so-called "dungeon" basement offices of the statehouse. They are furnished by the state for all Idaho media to blow the whistle on politicians and proposals they don't like. (Newsmen seldom tell bad tales about those they do like).
Still Sam is more or less a maverick, as media mongers go. He doesn't always look for or agree with my brilliant ideas for 90 percent privatization of government - but he saw and wrote well about the one on booze. Hopefully he will do more. I mean more writing, not more booze!
And last but not least there was our editorial page's political cartoon, perhaps the only editorial page message most politicians can't mistake. It told of skating rinks and health spas closed down because of unreasonable liability insurance rates. Unreasonable due to too many ambulance-chasing attorneys.
Any lawyers out there for a guest opinion or sharp letter to the editor?
Bad Advice from Ann Landers
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
January 19, 1986
Easily the most popular and widely read feature in today's newspapers is the advice column of Ann Landers. I read it upon occasion and usually find her advice to be along common sense lines. Last Monday was an exception of such magnitude I must blow the whistle on her.
Much is said these days about too much government, too many laws, too many regulations and too much legislated conformity. Landers seems to want even more. Her subject was college fraternities and the "time-honored" initiation tradition of violently hazing their pledges, usually freshmen, sometimes to the point of death or having to be hospitalized afterward.
A Landers' reader writes, "More than 24 young men have died in the last six years as the result of fraternity hazing."
Other bizarre examples were cited in the letter which was signed by "Anonymous in New York." A student was made to leap onto a haystack from a second story window. "He suffered a spinal cord injury and will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life." Truly outlandish, bordering on the insane.
Such antics, especially from the students who ought to have more sense is of course absurd, unnecessary and dangerous, but note that no one is compelled to play what many call a game of fools. Keep that in mind, folks, because it gets deeper as the government is asked to butt in.
The letter writer begged Landers to call for schools to "define their policies and procedures (on hazing) ... before state laws do it for them." Please note the writer did not ask Landers to urge more laws - just that the educators "define their policies ..."
The writer signed off with this passive and pathetic piece of anthill mentality: "We are sending our only son to college next year to get an education. (What else?) We pray that no fraternity shows an interest in him." Egad! What do they use for brains?
As if that were not enough to make a grown man "erp" his breakfast, just get a load of Landers' reply. But first let's remember now, folks, all this in the midst of the biggest boom in education-worship in world history and the biggest explosion of law-making and debt in recent history.
This writer is reminded of the zealous pass-a-law, pass-a-law people who today swarm around the Idaho Legislature demanding our lawmakers pass compulsory day-care licensing. They cite mostly that most other states do it, so we should, too.
Here's Landers' conformist style request to repair the collectivism mentality of many of our colleges: "... anti-hazing legislative measures have been enacted in 18 states." Six more, she claimed, are on the way. Then she adds: "My question: What's the matter with the other 26 (states)." Twenty-six still don't demand a "social license."
One is reminded also that a few years ago Idaho lawmakers followed similar advice when they hastily passed the now infamous Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) based mostly on "everyone else is doing it so why don't we?" The legislators rescinded it later when cooler heads prevailed.
Comes now the usually intelligent and self-reliance type Landers with her final punch line: "This cruel and senseless practice (voluntary hazing) must be stopped at once. I urge every parent who has knowledge of such activities to contact your representatives and senators and insist on action."
Now then, I ask you what is it on college campuses all over America that passes for brains? People are badgered to send their children to any university almost to the point of making them feel like second-class citizens even if they can't afford it or decline for other reasons.
I suggest that Landers passed up a beautiful opportunity to again call for common sense and self-responsibility. There are plenty of post-secondary schools, both government and non-government, where hazing and fraternities are no problem at all - voluntarily so. She could have named a few. That would really have helped.
I'm suggesting that these same schools, including even many Ivy League ones, are far, far along down the tragic road to mass conformity, group-think and impotence. Many writers saw it coming.
In his beautiful book, Revolt of the Masses, which is seldom talked of very much in most schools nowadays, the famous individualist Ortega y Gasset tried (mostly in vain, I'm afraid) to warn us: "The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select. Anybody who is not like everybody, who does not think like everybody, runs the risk of being eliminated." Including, one suspects, even from fraternity membership.
They may very well "teach" more pressure-group philosophy in today's university fraternities than do the professors, but social conditioning for one-man, one-vote (mob-rule) has been the bottom line of most colleges for decades. Well, it's here at last and we seem to be getting more violent as we pass more laws.
Escaping from the Farm Swamp
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
January 26, 1986
The office of U.S. Sen. Steve Symms informs me that the new farm bill for agriculture is projected to cost about $52 billion over the next three years and yet this is almost the first so-called farm bill he has ever been able or willing to support. Why?
First a little background, nay, maybe a lot of background since lack of it may be why we keep making the same mistake(s) over and over again. It is often said that the only thing Americans learn from history is that they don't learn anything from history. Television and the tendency away from reading books aside, there does exist some interesting research done by a good friend of mine which I believe may shed some light on the so-called farm problem.
The fact that (1) Idaho is greatly dependent on agriculture and (2) farmers both in and out of the state are dropping like flies is obvious so I won't repeat it. But so widely diverse are farmer's complaints and their suggestions for a cure that I'd like to focus attention on the problem by way of a different slant. This you may find slightly irrelevant at first, but stay tuned. We haven't made much progress for a long time and a little change of perspective just may help us find our way out of the swamp.
I'm suggesting we view the government's myriad of farm programs, both those that are simple and work and those that are complex and don't, as plans for a system of wage and price controls. That's what they are, you know, whether they are good or bad, sincere or conniving, successful or fatal.
We spend a great deal of time and money these days trying to find out what to do by holding lots of public hearings all over the country. But one can't help wonder what the ancients would have come up with if they had held hearings on just how to make a thermometer, then how to power a thermostat to do what the thermometer called for.
We'd be like the man with his feet in the refrigerator and his head in the oven. He said his feet were too cold and his head was too hot. His mother-in-law commented that on the average he was acceptable.
Well, that is not altogether funny, especially to farmers on each end of the story, which brings me to the background (i.e., history) without which our fool's burnt finger is almost certain to wobble right back to the fire. So bear with me, at least you won't have to suffer the usual wagon load of statistics.
Since the beginning of recorded history, man has worshiped at the altar of government. Prior to the organization of government, man worshiped at the feet of the witch doctors. The idea is that government is a problem-solving entity and has in every time and in every place a "just" or "fair" price for a certain kind of good or labor that can and ought to be enforced by them. It is almost part and parcel of civilization.
"For the past 46 centuries at least, governments all over the world have periodically tried to fix wages and prices," says the brilliant Robert Schuettinger, who was a student of Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek, teacher at Catholic University of America and University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which was home of the great economist Adam Smith, and visiting lecturer at many other universities.
"When (those) efforts failed, as they usually did, governments then put the blame on the wickedness of their subjects. Centralized planning regularly appears in every generation and is just as readily discarded after several years of experimentation. Grandiose plans for regulating investment, wages, prices and production are usually unveiled with great fanfare and high hopes. As reality gradually seeps in ... the plans are altered and finally allowed to vanish unmourned.
"Human nature being what it is, every decade or so the same old plans are dusted off (perhaps given a different label) and the process, like spring following winter, begins anew." (Sound familiar?)
"As early as the fifth dynasty in Egypt, generally dated at about 2800 B.C., the monarch Henku had inscribed on his tomb, 'I was Lord and overseer of southern grain in this nome (province).'"
Now then, my friends, if you know how early a dairyman has to get up in the morning and how hard he has to work for his "wage," you will soon see how I conclude that government farm subsidies should be seen as a system of wage and price controls. Many of you remember World War II and the Office of Price Administration (OPA) mentality of price controls which, though under another label, has come to dominate so many American thought leaders.
"For centuries the Egyptian government tried to maintain control of the grain crop," continues our perceptive researcher, "knowing that control of the people's food would necessarily mean control of their lives. Using the pretext of preventing famine, the government gradually regulated more and more granaries; regulation led to direction and finally to outright ownership; land became the property of the monarch and was rented from him by the agricultural class."
More next week. But remember the parallels: two-thirds of Idaho's "workhorse" (land) is already owned by the government and one 1986 candidate for governor, Cecil Andrus, steadfastly refuses to say whoa.
Socialism Down on the Farm
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
February 2, 1986
In an effort to get a better perspective on our farm problem ("ours" because, we are so interdependent), let's try to look at the government farm bill as a plan for price and wage control. When viewed in this way the precedent for such foolish ideas goes far back in history.
According to Chinese scholar Dr. Huan-Chang Chen, the economic doctrines of Confucius taught that "there are two sets of interests, those of producers and those of consumers. But nothing more markedly affects the interests of both sides at once than prices. Therefore ... according to Confucian theory, the government should level prices by the adjustment of demand and supply, in order to guarantee ... (costs and prices)." Some see today's farm bill as the same utopian effort.
The officials of the ancient Chinese empire hoped to replace the natural laws of supply and demand with their own superior judgment of what the proper supply and the proper demand (in their infinite wisdom) ought to be.
Noting this striking parallel with today's politicians and bureaucrats who control U.S. agricultural policy, Robert Schuettinger in a brilliant piece he did for the prestigious Heritage Foundation explains further: Dr. Chen relates that "According to the official system of Chou (about 1122 B.C.), the superintendent of grain looked around the fields and determined the amount of grain to be collected or issued ... fulfilling the deficit of their demand and adjusting their supply."
As one might see today this high-minded system didn't work as intended even in olden days when the mandarins had virtually absolute control. Chen concludes dryly that "The chief difficulty in administering (production, price and wage controls) is that it is not easy for officials to undertake commercial functions along with political duties."
Many today would suggest it is not only difficult, but impossible. One is reminded that after thousands of years of demand for booze there are still Americans trying to stamp it out. Finding that impossible they attempt to tax it to death resulting only in driving the practice underground and into the arms of organized crime such as the Mafia.
As an interesting aside one is tempted to draw a tenuous parallel between the Mafia's attempt to illegally supply what many demand and are willing to pay huge prices to get (e.g.,. cigarettes, whiskey, prostitution, drugs, etc.) with what the government attempts to supply - farm products - for which people are unwilling to pay a "fair" price. Facing this price problem they dump, destroy and sometimes deliver farm products at disastrously low prices. They then make up the incredible cost of such foolishness by collecting their money much like the Mafia does, i.e., at the point of a gun or with threats therewith.
Still, Americans seem slow to learn. They fail perhaps to "see" given our gigantic anti-market, anti-free enterprise, anti-individualism political establishment. In order for a politician to be elected today he is virtually forced to promise pie-in-the-sky schemes or at least avoid discussion of the obvious. So he offers some "new" pitch people perceive as possible.
It is possible to get elected, of course, but it is not possible to repeal the law of gravity or the law of supply and demand for farm products. Nor is it new to try. In spite of the educators' apparent inability to teach economic history as relevant and ageless, they overlook not only the Oriental ancients who fail the farm test but Athens, too.
During the time of Plato and Socrates the bureaucrats of the Acropolis also tried to repeal the supply and demand law.
The populous city-state of Athens was constantly short of grain, but they had an army of grain inspectors who were called "Sitephylaces." They were appointed for the purpose of setting the price of grain at a level the Athenian government thought to be just.
According to Schuettinger, the results of Athens' bureaucrats were not at all unlike today's: "Despite the penalty of death, which the harassed government did not hesitate to inflict, the laws controlling the grain trade were almost impossible to enforce."
It's true that today's farmers are not put to death - just bankruptcy. Of course, a few farmers and a few merchants do prosper via government programs but the gawdawful "deficit law" has not yet been repealed either. Remember? Bear with me, folks, for those errors of ages past are still very much alive yet we seem to insist they are somehow new. All of which makes it imperative we deeply absorb history's message before it's too late.
The most famous and the most extensive attempt to control prices took place in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian in A.D. 301. He, too, was no attentive student of Greek economic history, but he was at least as arrogant as today's politicians. So stay tuned for next week's "ominous parallels" starring Diocletian forerunner of Emperor Carter who printed the money to finance his reign - and Emperor Reagan who is borrowing to finance his.
Looking Back for Guidance
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
February 9, 1986
Today's agricultural problem-legislation is called the farm bill. U.S. Sen. Steve Symms says it may not be good, but it's the best we can get given the bad-guy Democrat's penchant for socialism or, more accurately - fascism. The latter is defined as private ownership, but government controlled. The former apple-grower senator seems to think the bill is some-what virtuous because it moves us toward proper respect for the law of supply and demand, i.e., a market economy.
If we look upon the government's farm bill as a scheme of "price and wage controls" the whole discussion comes out ever so much clearer. If you think the problem (not to mention the solution) is the least bit clear just talk to 10 farmers. You will likely get 10 different answers.
In my crusade to show this price control idea is not only bad and misguided, if not impossible, I want to emphasize that it is not new any more than is the old alchemist's idea of turning lead into gold.
The Emperor Diocletian's far-ranging edict to control prices in 301 A.D. set out to control 700 to 800 prices. It consisted of ceiling prices for grain, eggs, beef, clothing, etc., and included the penalty of death believe it or not, which was prescribed and often enforced for anyone who sold his goods above the "government's" price. His edict contained familiar words and phrases like "extortion" and "avarice." "Extortion" was another word used in denouncing merchants of "immense fortunes" who were motivated by "private gain rather than a patriotic desire to keep profits within bounds."
Further research of Robert Schuettinger for the Heritage Foundation points out that executions were not uncommon once Diocletian's controls began to crumble. Not having a printing press (not invented yet) he couldn't print money either so he debased the currency by shaving off the edges of his subject's gold and silver coins to pay his government's debts. It's called coin-clipping.
Diocletian's answer to his edict's failure was yet more and tougher laws (just like today) and to step up the rate of executions. After much blood-shed and complete failure he was forced to abdicate. Not 60 years later his successor, the Emperor Julian, was right back at the same old game. Edward Gibbon, the great historian, ironically notes that "... the emperor ventured on a very dangerous and doubtful step, of fixing, by legal authority, the value of corn (grain)."
The experience of Julian, like that of Diocletian before him, demonstrated again that attempts to control the law of supply and demand produce the exact opposite of the desired effects.
In the year 1199 the government in London attempted to control the wholesale and retail price of wine. That law failed even though the "new" prices were based on important costs plus other expenses. Sound familiar?
Early New England colonists, too, suffered government to extend itself into all parts of society, from the religious to the political to the economic. Historian William Weedon tells us "... but the Puritan legislator fondly believed that, once freed from malignant influence of the ungodly, that once based upon the Bible, he could legislate prosperity and well-being for everyone, rich or poor."
Price controls, most of which were sincerely intended, continued in early America and included beaver skins and corn trade with the Indians. On Nov. 19, 1776, the General Assembly of Connecticut passed price control measures for many of the "necessaries of life" declaring "all other necessary articles not enumerated be reasonable in proportion to the above-mentioned articles." By Aug. 13, 1777, the unsuccessful laws were repealed. The see-saw of pass-a-law, pass-a-law continued as it continues today until the great Pelatiah Webster, America's first economist, slowed it for a time with some wise words in January 1780.
He wrote: "As experiment is the surest proof of ... speculations of this kind ... it is strange, it is marvelous to me, that any person on common discernment ... acquainted with all the above-mentioned trials and effects, should entertain any idea of the expediency of trying any such (controls) again ...
"Trade, if let alone, will ever make its own way best, and like an irresistible river, will ever run safest, do least mischief and do most good, suffered to run without obstruction in its natural channel."
So what to do, now that we're in 1986, with our farm problem of price and wage controls for farmers. Well, we could begin by learning something from history - for a change.
But beware, for most of the history teachers are also on the government's payroll.
Lack of Freedom Causes Problem
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
February 16, 1986
The bill introduced in the current session of the Idaho Legislature to require government schools to teach creation if evolution is being taught went down to defeat.
While the bill was indeed killed the controversy was not. It will not doubt come up again. One remembers how the genocide treaty has been voted down for decades now, but is to be brought up again soon - believe it or not. As an interesting aside, it's the liberals who continually dig that one up again and again and again all the while complaining that the "religious nuts" won't shut up about creation.
Regardless of how one views the pros and cons of it, the argument presents an interesting dilemma, one that has a striking parallel to that confronting a growing number of people. They feel the subject of free enterprise or, if you like, capitalism is getting short shrift in government schools, but let me come back to that in a moment.
On the matter of creation there is the basic contradiction caused by the lack of parent's freedom to choose which school their children can attend. Given the compulsory attendance laws and given the fact they must pay taxes (almost 75 percent of the state's entire budget) to support a system of which they do not approve, no wonder there is a big cranky debate.
It is not at all unlike the current controversy on the labor law. As it now stands a union member is forced to pay dues part of which go toward supporting political candidates he opposes. As dull-witted as the general public tends to be, this gross injustice may finally be remedied soon with a right-to-work law. Both problems are brought about simply by denying people's freedom of choice.
Look at it this way. Many believe if the evolution story is taught it is tantamount to insisting that at best the Bible cannot be true if indeed God exists at all. Seen in this light it is of course small wonder those who believe in the creation story feel discriminated against, especially when they are forced to help finance their religious opposition.
There is a further predicament which plagues citizens and politicians of good will and, by the way, many folks on both sides of this controversy are nice, well-meaning people. The problem was spoken to in a somewhat oblique way by Rep. Liz Allan, R-Caldwell, herself a deeply religious and devout Christian. Said she, "You cannot compel people to believe in God." She explained her surprise vote thusly against the so-called "creation bill."
However, one concludes, it would still seem to raise the term "inconsistent" to a new high if a teacher who did not believe in God were to be compelled to teach the creation story.
Now then, consider the parallel to that dilemma facing those who feel free-market capitalism is getting virtually the same short shrift as religion in most of the government schools, and for that matter most of the non-government schools as well.
To begin with, most colleges and universities locate their economics classes in their business school departments or at least in places other than the influential liberal arts or humanities departments. This suggests, of course, that the professors, deans and powers-that-be tend to view the study of economics as something less than of full scale importance to intellectual life.
To see otherwise, however, one has only to look at the giant and growing financial mess, a veritable economic holocaust done at the hands of our federal government's educated, perhaps over-educated, elite.
An untypical exception to the rule is President George Roche of Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Mich. About one ghastly observation seldom mentioned by today's educators Roche's book Legacy of Freedom quotes: "The expansion of government to its present scale has politicalized virtually all economic life. The wages being paid most workers are political wages, reflecting political pressures rather than anything that might be considered the normal workings of supply and demand. The prices farmers receive are political prices. The profits (that) business is earning are political profits. The savings people hold have become political savings, since their real value is subject to abrupt depreciation by political decisions."
Can you imagine one of our Keynesian economics "preachers" allowing equal time for such a gospel from a government school "pulpit?"
So you see, my friends, how the creation story and the evolution story compete in a sort of death-struggle rivalry much as do the ideas of free enterprise and Marxism right here at home.
You might want to make sure your school and your church are on the same side you are on - and forget the politicians.
The Other Side of the Story
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
February 23, 1986
It would be great sport if I could accurately tell the following story on an enemy, but I cannot. In fact, it's about quite a good friend, but one who is very, very liberal.
Recently a card-carrying liberal columnist for the Press-Tribune's Sunday edit page, Steve Shaw, wrote about Marc Johnson, formerly the government TV's host interviewer on KAID-TV's Channel 4 program, Idaho Reports. One seldom hears conservatives bragging on each other, but liberals are good at giving moral support to all their pals and even the occasional conservative who, for whatever reason, sees fit to vote with the liberals. We conservatives should take a page from their book.
Shaw is a political science teacher at Northwest Nazarene College (NNC) so his liberalism can hardly be said to be inconsistent with his predecessors at that college, but his super-laudatory observations about our mutual friend Johnson were such as to be so self-serving I feel compelled to tell the other side. Our reader's right to know - you know, and all that stuff.
First off let me say I think both Shaw and Johnson are sincere. Wrong of course - in spades, but sincere.
Johnson, as you may know, resigned his Channel 4 post of many years to go to work for gubernatorial candidate Cecil Andrus, another super-liberal friend of mine, but also one whose socialist leanings, especially on land ownership, would make the late Norman Thomas, long-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, blush with chagrin.
Andrus is a fun guy, though, and hard to hate. He and Marc make a good liberal political pair, i.e., both are fun, smart and political disasters.
Shaw said Marc's interests "still involve the connection between politics and the media." I laughed. What connection? The words are one and the same. In Boise they especially are when the issue is advocating more government which Shaw, too, almost always loves. Shaw went on to say, "In interviewing guests on his show, people who were either private citizens or prominent public figures, he (Johnson) was always fair and courteous yet candid and forthright."
Almost entirely true.
He was usually friendly and fair to me which is more than I can say about the network stations, but there is a catch. Maybe two or three angles, too, when one goes to brag on Johnson, but for me a conservative of sorts, it is quite different than for the very liberal Shaw. Here's why.
This writer succeeded in getting Johnson to interview my good friend Reed Irving, chairman of Accuracy in Media (AIM), the nation's foremost critic and conservative watchdog of the liberal networks, Washington Post, New York Times and other giant media outlets around the U.S.A. These also include the government's TV (PBS) and National Public Radio(NPR), both of which often tend to make even Johnson and Channel 4 look like members of the John Birch Society.
Marc interviewed Irvine for 45 minutes - and guess what? He never ran it until exactly one year later. Why? Because Irvine was super-critical of the media and extremely articulate about it.
Shaw says Johnson was "always fair ... and professional" much of which is true, hence part of the reason I like him and consider him a friend. But Balderdash to Shaw's unqualified endorsement. There are more reasons why, but consider some of what Johnson did on the above-mentioned occasion one year later and after my 10 or 12 calls during the year urging him to air the show.
Shaw's "fair, candid and forthright" interviewer, Marc Johnson, chopped two-thirds off his 45-minute interview with the professional and candid media critic from Washington, D.C., and substituted instead two left-wing reporters from Idaho, Rod Gramer and Randy Stapilus, both of whom used the second half of the program to roundly criticize and denounce Irvine and AIM. Never before nor since has such a deviation taken place on KAID-TV to the best of my knowledge. And certainly none against a liberal.
I phoned Johnson later on with tongue in cheek to say that I wasn't going to complain, after all, inasmuch as I was sure of his sense of fairness. In the future he would now no doubt be obliged to call me and one of my non-statist friends to criticize, cut up and lambaste some of the parade of left-wingers so frequently seen on his show - and get a full one-half the program to do it.
While I can honestly say I enjoy most of the Channel 4 personnel a great deal (they have a good sense of humor, especially when trying to avoid "equal time" for market alternatives) I must tell you, I never ever received such a call, i.e., to cut a liberal in half.
So much for Press-Tribune columnist Steve Shaw's born-again testimonial for Idaho liberalism's number one TV evangelist, Marc Johnson. May he and his new boss get their prayers answered next November - like Irvine and I got ours answered on government TV.
You Would Be Paranoid Too
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
March 2, 1986
On the matter of the Legislature voting in favor of or against a state-run lottery there are medium to red-hot opinions, but what goes on behind much of the news media's reporting is even more interesting. In fact there is a whole truck load of strange "reporting" going on. Why?
Well, one reason is that so very much (not all) of the so-called reporting is badly slanted and in ways quite difficult even for an intelligent layman to spot. Rep. Gary Montgomery, R-Boise, last week made a devastating point during the debate against legalizing gambling in the form of a government lottery. Aside from the moral aspect of the argument which is well made by both the Ada County conservative and a host of others, there is the seldom made point that the state of Idaho should not be in yet another business - gambling. Nevada, whose major business is just that, finds it expedient to call it "gaming."
Montgomery seems to think a state lottery will be run as is just about every other business that government attempts to run - badly. Idaho voters are seldom reminded that as matters now stand, should a lottery become legal here, it would have to be owned and operated by a government agency. Montgomery eloquently added just such a reminder during the debate, but the political reporter from a large Idaho daily newspaper chose not to report at all Montgomery's relatively new twist in the debate against a state-run lottery. Only the ho-hum moral argument was reported.
Why? Well, one major reason is that that particular reporter is of an extreme liberal persuasion and such is par for his regular routine when "reporting" on issues involving the conservative versus liberal controversy. Conservative legislators frequently complain bitterly about this situation, but the other reporters steadfastly refuse to write about it.
Though most newsmen are indeed liberal only a few are so devastatingly so as is the above-mentioned one. Conservative lawmakers nonetheless must depend on such a left-wing reporter through which to get their news and views to much of the public.
Look at it another way. Suppose two respectable, prestigious and worldwide churches were to be in a similar contest to get their views on controversial points across to the public. Take the Catholic and the Mormon churches, for example. How long do you suppose the latter church would sit still for their views to be published, edited, commented upon and howled about only through a Jesuit priest reporter headquartered right smack in the center of the Vatican in Rome?
One guesses such a situation, no matter how many or good the educational and journalistic credentials, would soon undergo radical and responsible changes. It is as if President Reagan's administration were to use George McGovern or Tip O'Neill for a press secretary or a kind of key mouthpiece.
There are, of course, many, many other examples of what most conservative lawmakers claim to be biased and unfair reporting. Some of it is cleverly slanted and some not so clever. Much of it, one supposes, arises by mistake or accident.
In fairness to reporters at large, many of them work long and hard and sincerely, too, in an effort to be fair and honest, yet it is also interesting that so many newsmen will readily admit to having liberal if not downright left-wing convictions while one of an outspoken conservative persuasion can seldom be found. And all the while journalism professors and other pedagogues are demanding more pay so they can teach "all sides of all issues" fairly and honestly.
A parade of liberal to left-wing spokesmen are easy to be found on TV, especially on Boise's government TV, Channel 4. Many are charming and intelligent, even interesting. Most of the time, however, each of these guest the whole half-hour's time for his or her interview alone.
On the other hand let an articulate conservative or libertarian (i.e., a non-statist) spokesman be interviewed, such as Dr. Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute of London, England, was last month and the television producers virtually scramble to find someone to tell the "other" side.
Ex-Gov. Bob Smylie, I'm told, did a good job opposite Pirie and against the privatization idea. Great. I applaud. Smylie's a good guy and a good choice, but why so seldom the other way around?
On the good side, southwest Idaho is fortunate indeed to have the only newspaper which could possibly be said to have a conservative editorial policy. That is the Idaho Press-Tribune. Some balance.
So what to do? This writer hereby respectfully request the conservative legislators now assembled in session in Boise to issue at least one candid press release per week as to "how fair" the news was reported that week by the respective reporters - and name names.
Or stop bellyaching about the news being insufferably biased. It's called the people's right to know.
Boston Continues to Affect Our Lives
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
March 9, 1986
Last week I visited in Boston for the first time in my life. I mention this not so much because it was for me a first time event, but rather some big important events happened there around 1776 that still affect the lives of most all Americans whether we realize it or not. Of course, problems still exist, but a historical tour of that city suggests the problems of history were not all that unlike many of today's.
A clever brochure about Boston begins: "The Freedom Trail is an ideal way to get acquainted with our city. This orderly walking tour allows a visitor to discover 16 historical sites in the course of two or three hours and over two or three-half centuries of America's most meaningful past.
"The red brick or painted line (on the sidewalks about the town) connecting sites on the Trail serve as a guide that relates significant events that served as Boston's contributions to Colonial and Revolutionary history. Since the past and the present live alongside the Trail the visitor is brought to many of the most interesting views of the new city, as well."
And indeed the Chamber of Commerce-type rhetoric is true - in spades, although one suspects that modern Americans have learned considerably less from history than did our Founding Fathers. Boston is a unique city that exemplifies many aspects of America's heritage. "It's citizens," states their brochure, "are a perpetual fountain of individualism. Its scholars and statesmen have profoundly influenced the life of the city and the Nation."
They could also have added a modern fact, namely, that they still do, i.e., they do if one uses the word "scholars" to mean educational institutions, one of which seems to turn up on every other corner on just about every other block in the city. Certainly not the least of these institutions is Harvard, which began as a private (repeat, private) endeavor around or about the year 1638.
If one uses the brochure's second word, "statesmen," concerning Boston's influence on our nation to mean today's politicians, then the city is most certainly still influencing both our country's social power and political power. I hasten to add that it is not particularly, as alleged by the above-mentioned brochure, a "... perpetual fountain of individualism," however.
The tour of Freedom Trail in downtown Boston began at Boston Common, the oldest public park in the United States, occupying 48 acres in Boston's busy downtown. Purchased in 1634 to serve the people of Boston as a militia "training field" and for the "feeding of Cattell," the common was the embarkation point of the British during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Today, on the hilly east side, one will find street musicians, political protests, outdoor lunches and art-in-the-park exhibits.
On the flat west side, which faces the public garden, major outdoor events such as the first papal mass and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 100th birthday have occurred in the same area where the British mustered for Lexington and Concord.
Second on the tour was the statehouse designed by Charles Bulfinch, famous 18th century architect. It was built in land that belonged to the John Hancock family. Samuel Adams laid the cornerstone and its gold-plated dome (no kidding folks, it is actually plated with 24-karat gold, the last time in the late 1960s - at government expense, of course) has become one of the city's chief landmarks.
We will come back to the Freedom Trail in later columns, but just now let me say that I was heartened by a piece of current "reality" of Boston which I had begun to wonder lest it have been entirely lost on the city's modern culture of today. A cab driver added for me this saving grace during our visit as we sped across town:
"Oh, yeah, I'm from Boston all right. And I'm proud of it, but I ain't one of those big spenders like Tip O'Neill and the Kennedys. Why Goshamighty those (expletive deleted) - they just want to give the whole dang country away."
Well, that's a completely honest quote folks, believe it or not. And it made my day, but it also made me wonder if Boston's own Kennedys and O'Neills ever walked the Freedom Trail in their own city. Or, if Idahoans quite realize just how much "Boston" is in their lives - even today.
Stay tuned.
Looking Back at the President
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
March 16, 1986
Last week this column recounted some sights along what Boston's city fathers have fashioned as their city's Freedom Trail. It is outlined by way of directions all about the town by a red brick strip in the sidewalk of a two-brick wide "trail" from one famous landmark after another, each of big significance in America's history.
There is so much of importance to tell about our country's history that one tends to feel inadequate to the task, especially when faced with so very many famous buildings, each of which symbolizes such great events and great men. I'm led to wonder if it's true that today our leaders are less intelligent, less heroic, less courageous or less individualistic than in Revolutionary War days. Perhaps we expect too much of them or maybe it is ourselves who do too little and expect taxes and the "government" to solve too much.
In any event it is fun to try so here we go again on "Boston's" Freedom Trail. (The quotes are because, in a way, it's our trail too).
Near the statehouse with its 24-karat gold dome is the "Old Granary" Burying Ground. Among the famous buried there are John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and many others, not the least of whom are the parents of Benjamin Franklin. There are probably more people buried in "Old Granary" who are known to more people than are buried in any other burying ground in the world.
As an aside one wonders just why our television networks are so fond of showing the long, winding lines of Russian people waiting patiently to see Lenin's tomb or body or whatever it is they wait to look at. Not so in America, thank heaven.
Yet, there is another dimension to this graveyard about which we forget to recount, i.e., the world of non-politicians. One example which both delighted and surprised me was the grave marker, plain as could be of "Mary Goose Wife to Isaac Goose, aged 42 ... died October 19, 1690." Boston's Mother Goose is said to have written the nursery rhymes for her grandchildren.
On down the street is Park Street Church built in 1809. William Lloyd Garrison gave his first anti-slavery address in this Congregational Trinitarian Evangelical religious building and the sails for the U.S. Frigate Constitution, "Old Ironsides," were made there. Lest we forget our forefathers' zeal to extol the virtues of their places of worship: the building's weathervane which crowns its spire is 217 feet above the street level. Spectacular!
And if some like to hear preached the "fire and brimstone" message they would have loved Park Street Church because it stands on Brimstone Corner. It was thus named from the storage of brimstone in the basement for the manufacture of explosive powder in 1812.
So much for today's bleating hearts. They bleat for our heritage separating church and state, but many say they carry it to an extreme point. Says President Reagan, "... so that freedom 'of' religion becomes freedom 'from' religion." Einstein said, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
In any event, one need not digress very far in looking back at our history, as Boston's Freedom Trail seems to cry out, to also look over our shoulder today. We might notice something big, even ominous, perhaps.
That is, in properly segregating church and state we have somehow managed to separate ourselves from religion - maybe even to the point of substituting something vaguely labeled "scientific evolution" in the place of religion. Maybe we've done this unwittingly, I simply don't know.
I do know one thing, however, that we have virtually made a "religion" out of government. More and more folks note our tendency to sort of worship "high priests" of government. The latter promise a kind of immediate salvation or immediate damnation depending on how much and to whom the "tithe" is paid. The "church" (i.e., government) bureaucracy presently holding power is able to bestow largess, loot and luxury to its loyal followers - and sometimes swift retaliation and retribution to those who dissent or refuse merely to conform. Taxes and regulation are today's liberal's billy club.
Think about it, my friends, because the famous anti-tax Boston Tea Party (only 3 pence per pound of tea) is remembered and mouthed, even memorized by most school children today. But for what? Is the absolutely fascinating historical message of these Boston landmarks and their wonderful preservation simply nuts? Are they trying to tell school children that today's religion and government cannot or should not mix? Obviously not! Then Boston's Freedom Trail message is somehow misunderstood by many beautiful and caring people. Perhaps we should explore this as to why?
This writer was house guest while in Boston of two heartwarming examples of the latter, namely, the Rev. and Mrs. Nathaniel Pierce, formerly of Grace Episcopal Church in Nampa. Nat was a columnist in this newspaper. Mrs. Pierce (Audrey) was my wonderful, intelligent and enthusiastic Freedom Trail guide. What does all this tell me?
Perhaps by some strange, if unlikely, twist of fate I too misunderstand part of Boston's message. Why? Well, Nat and Audrey are two wild-eyed political liberals. Still, I love 'em both. Maybe it's me who's nuts. Nonetheless I take Boston's story to be radically libertarian - not liberal. Stay tuned, it gets deeper.
Whatever - Boston Has It in Spades
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
March 23, 1986
This is the third and final column in a series relating a recent tour of Boston's historical landmarks. My wonderfully competent, patriotic and hospitable guide around the city was Audrey Pierce, wife of the Rev. Nathaniel Pierce, formerly of Nampa.
The Pierce's hospitality to me was not limited merely to the historical places nor to Boston's Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art, where we were treated to the world famous French Impressionist painters. No sir!
It included my own spare bedroom in the rectory of downtown Brookline's (a suburb of Boston) All Saints Episcopal Church, a beautiful edifice designed by a famous architect and built in the early 1900s. Its gorgeous stained glass windows would make most preachers of any denomination green with envy.
I mention all this not so much to recite my being such a welcome house-guest of my former worthy opponent, valued friend and liberal political columnist in this newspaper, but rather more to set up a little scenario. It is what I think is an unusual slant on historical significance memorialized via an American city famous in our pathbreaking Revolutionary War.
We saw the "Old State House" built in 1712. It was a very attractive and utilitarian three or four story brick building that served as the seat of the colonial government. The first gallery from which the public could watch government in action was opened there in 1776. From its balcony, the Declaration of Independence was first read to the citizens of Boston.
One spot of special importance to me on our Freedom Trail tour was the Paul Revere House. Built about 1676, it is the oldest surviving structure in Boston. With leaded windows, large fireplace and such genuine artifacts as Paul Revere's saddle bats, this two-story wooden building served as the history-making patriot's home from 1770 to 1800. He took part in the Boston Tea Party (remember - a mere 3 pennies per pound tax on the tea) and departed from there on his historic ride to warn the residents of Lexington and Concord of the approach of the British Redcoats.
Not far away is "Old North Church" or "Christ Church," the oldest standing church still in use. From its steeple, sexton Robert Newman hung two lanterns to warn Charlestown that the British were crossing the harbor on the way to Concord.
Which brings me back to my good friends, my super-liberal friends, if I may, the Rev. Nathaniel Pierces, especially Nat, of course. He of the White Train fame for his leadership of sitting on the railroad track to protest nuclear armament. He of public protest against Beauregard the bloodhound at the Canyon County Sheriff's Office some years back. He of leadership fame for most all liberal causes of political maverick. His vivacious, super-caring and liberal wife, Audrey, while sometimes outspoken in lively disagreement, was usually supportive. Comes now the $64,000 question.
How come Boston, this most historic city of freedom, the cradle of liberty itself from centuries of too much government, too much taxation and too much tribute to the modern Caesar, has been sitting there for so long in such apparent, if silent, contradiction to today's politicians? How come Boston has so many super liberals like Tip O'Neill and the Kennedy family dynasty? They are all in Boston, in the only state in the union that both Mondale's and McGovern's liberalism carried in otherwise conservative landslides. (Mondale lost Massachusetts by a small margin.)
I asked my peppery preacher friend why today's mavericks so diverse as the Revs. Jerry Falwell, Jesse Jackson, Sun Yung Moon, Nathaniel Pierce, Ralph Smeed and others (not to be compared with the Boston patriots) seem to stir up so much animosity or hatred.
"Maybe," said Nat, "maybe it's just commitment." Well, whatever it is, Boston has it - in spades.
Less for Him, Not for Me
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
March 3, 1986
The Republican Women of Canyon County are alive and well, at least one of them is, because its president beat this writer over the head and shoulders with her friendly "rubber hose" until I agreed to join.
It was thus that my membership along with 10 others was announced in the organization's recent newsletter. I'm glad I joined, but a statement in that newsletter disturbed me a bit.
The lady about whom I write, somewhat in jest of course, is the effusive, effervescent, super chatty and lovable Patti Ann Lodge. She is a Caldwell school librarian and gadfly for all kinds of good, if not more or less "moderate" causes. I use the quotes because it seems nobody wants to define just what it means. That quality in itself tends to give it some substance, but more about that later.
In any event Patti seems to be sincere, but the statement over her initials in the above publication are a little disconcerting. To bend a line from Shakespeare, "She doth protesteth too much." I quote part of her or her publication's statement:
"Maybe if our Representatives realized the cost to the taxpayer of each day (of the legislative session) they do not solve our 'Shortfall' problems, they would stop their name calling and debate on abominable legislation and get to work to solve the problems facing this state."
She went on to cite some figures such as "needed solutions" and "another cent sales tax" and that today the legislative session cost "approximately $885,000" even though (ex) Governor Smylie told her that "... it is almost impossible to exactly compute..." such a cost.
Please note that almost everybody today decries the cost of government as being "too high." The exception, of course, is when their particular department of government comes under question for "less cost." Always they exempt "my" particular department.
Mrs. Lodge's particular department is the government schools which as everyone knows advocates "more cost." They sincerely attempt to justify more cost, as one could expect, but they tend to engage in a kind of sophisticated name-calling at those who dissent against "more cost" for education. Please note how seldom this so-called school lobby, a most powerful one by the way, never advocates the increased use of non-government schools. The customers of the latter pay a kind of double tax now in order to pay for their children to attend the non-government schools.
It is interesting also to note Patti Ann's use of the words "abominable legislation." Methinks this phrase is the key term, i.e., the real active ingredient, in her newsletter's protest. It is allegedly directed at "the legislators" (all unnamed, of course) running up the cost of this legislative session and therefore higher taxes. Absolutely thunderous is her silence about the higher and higher taxes caused by the higher and higher costs of her "particular department" - government schools.
Furthermore, it is also interesting that Patti Ann's (it is not clear whether her statement's sentiment is also that of her women's organization) protest seems mostly directed at some conservative lawmakers. She means those who are fighting what they see as an almost irreversible national trend to accept homosexuality as an "acceptable alternative lifestyle" in the government's public school system.
This latter is outlined and advocated in both the National Education Association (NEA) handbook and the Democrat National Platform according to Rep. Robert Forrey, R-Nampa, but it is difficult to hear regular media say much about that situation.
Forrey's forces are in fact fighting higher taxes for almost all government costs, including education. This would seem to be the real target of the Republican Women of Canyon County's newsletter or at least Patti Ann Lodge's protest therein, but there is also another sticky issue.
It should be noted that her term "abominable legislation" would have to include Forrey's forces who are for the most part the same legislators who were promoting the bill against teachers' advocating homosexuality as "acceptable alternative lifestyle in the government's public school system." The bill passed the House 2 to 1, but was buried in the Senate.
I say hooray for Patti Ann Lodge, if it is really less government cost she wants. But if it is less vigorous and less vocal dissent from those with whom she had an emotional and professional disagreement, than I'm saddened indeed.
Some 'Nice Guys' Screw Up Badly
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
April 6, 1986
How can such nice guys screw up so badly?
Goshamighty! Most of today's batch of boondogglers are friends of mine, too.
In no particular order of importance, but listing them chronologically according to their screw-ups they are: Cecil Andrus, Democrat candidate for governor; ex-Gov. Robert E. Smylie; Sam Lang, political reporter for this newspaper; Vern Hinkle, entrepreneur, free enterprise zealot and president of Idaho Sand and Gravel; Jerry Hess of J.N. Hess Construction; and Ralph Little of Canyon Highway District.
What did these gentlemen do when they should have known better? Well, first on today's list is Cecil Andrus who wrote me a terse note recently commenting on my criticism of him and his campaign press secretary Marc Johnson, formerly of the government's TV program (Channel 4) Idaho Reports. Among some other more colorful observations of the affable Andrus and Johnson team, I opined that they were a couple of wild-eyed liberals who deserved each other.
Said Andrus of my column: "What a bunch of garbage!" signed "CDA." He usually signs his notes to me with a friendly "Cece," but this one I took to be somewhat less affectionate.
My response? Of course, I said: "Garbage it was, friend Cecil, which is precisely why I wrote about it." Ho, ho, ho. But I still like the guy.
Comes now Bob Smylie with something such as: "The Idaho Legislature(s) have never been responsible when it comes to adequately funding higher education in Idaho."
My response? Well Bob, maybe "the people" through their duly elected representatives have been trying to tell you politicians something about "higher education."
Unfortunately Smylie comes from an ancient time in politics when conservatives were exclaiming about the "silent majority." Heck, the majority is not silent, my friends, the government is deaf. So much for how officeholders tend to "hear" the voice of the people.
Sam Lang's title is political "reporter." Sam's problem, unlike that of his super-lib counterpart at the Idaho Statesman, is not so much a liberal ideological fanaticism that tends to bias news reporting. In fact Lang is to my mind much less bad than most of the Idaho reporters, particularly political reporters.
To his credit, he thinks of himself as a sort of media maverick during the Idaho legislative session. But sincere or not, his former tenure as a college professor keeps showing up as being far more easily irritated by conservative positions on most things than by liberal positions. Here's an example:
Recently I scolded Patti Ann Lodge's rather biased and narrow criticism of conservative legislators. (Some love to hate the latter by calling them "queer bashers.") Lang took Lodge's side by misunderstanding mine, I think, but also by questioning my motives - of all things. Said he "... Smeed conveniently ignores ... that legislators ought to deal in less name-calling, less effort to convert individual religious beliefs into public laws ... and ... make government more efficient."
My response? If it is "convenient" for Lang to ignore the Bible's and Christianity's role in the law of the land, he should contact Judge Dennis Goff whose excellent research on the subject was only recently expressed at a Caldwell luncheon. Lang might then stop finding it "convenient" to ignore the context of Rep. Robert Forrey's criticisms of compulsory government schools, while favoring non-government ones.
Almost the entire Idaho media insists on ignoring the real guts of Forrey's forthright and plain-spoken criticisms, but that is no sign Lang should do the same. Forrey quotes at great length both from the official handbook of the National Education Association (NEA) and the Democrat national platform.
These two documents, if properly exposed and explained to the public by the news media, would no doubt elect the peppery, articulate and thoughtful Forrey for the rest of his political life. Come on now, Sam, get off that "making government efficient" crap - you're beginning to sound like a conservative.
Which brings me to sand and gravel merchant Vern Hinkle who was quoted last week as saying, "... private industry can do the job more efficiently."
My response? Balderdash! Or perhaps he was misquoted. I hope so. Anyway, let me explain: As you may know, two county highway districts (Nampa and Canyon) are soon to ask for bids to buy a new gravel crushing plant. It is expected to cost $300,000 to $400,000.
Why should government be in such a business at all? Efficient or not. Under any circumstances. Private ownership is the principle that basically distinguishes our system from that of the Soviet Union - regardless of how intelligent and sincere are the local county operators. And I think they are completely sincere and intelligent. Wrong, of course, but completely conscientious.
Jerry Hess was quoted: "I think we're talking about socialism vs. free enterprise."
My response? Whaddaya mean, Jerry, you "think?" Where were you and Ralph Little when those "quarreling" conservative legislators were trying to get a bill passed recently to make socialism - the state competing against private enterprise - more difficult for Idaho governmental agencies?
The bill failed, believe it or not, by one vote.
Libs Began the Name-Calling
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
April 13, 1986
This writer has been characterized as the self-appointed "hair shirt" critic of the Idaho news media. It is an overstated label, I admit, but one which I do wish I had the resources and skill to properly pursue for such criticism is desperately needed.
There is very little willingness within the super-liberal media "fraternity" to publicly criticize each other. Intellectual competition among both newspapers and electronic media is virtually non-existent - but I do try to offer some as best I can, thanks to the good offices, openmindedness or sense of humor, perhaps, of this newspaper.
Idaho is fairly conservative, but if one is to judge just who is out of step with the people it is certainly the media - both print and electronic.
My point is this: How would you like to have real, important convictions - indeed, if you were convinced your country's future actually hung in the balance (as Steve Symms tells me he feels) - but then you had to effectively communicate those political thoughts, ideas and sentiments to the voting public, all this through a generally hostile media?
Oh sure, there are exceptions. Not many, but some. In fact, there are some fine and genuinely sincere liberal newsmen - but they're liberal. And they are also human, which brings me to my central, if not most important, point.
There is no way humanly possible in today's hypersensitive goof-ball public atmosphere for a college journalism graduate to report the main events, opinions, public pronouncements, sentiments and assumptions of the leadership of today's politicians. This is not to mention the individual citizens, the special interests, both ethical and otherwise, without personal bias, religious bias, anti-religious slants and cultural preferences galore.
Now don't tell me that some poorly defined "professionalism" among journalists such as used to be a mark of pride with newsmen of bygone days like Ernie Pyle, H.L. Mencken, Will Rogers, George Pulitzer and others, is operational today. That's hogwash that even self-admitted dull-witted readers are catching on to.
OK, you ask, so what's all that monkey business in Washington or Los Angeles or Munich or Moscow got to do with us ordinary Joes and Janes here at home? Well just this: I hear a lot here in the Idaho media, which gets repeated by many who ought to know better, that our legislators, recently adjourned, argued too much, quarreled too much, even name-called a little much and by only one person, by the way, when they should have been getting on with the business of, one supposes, passing more laws. Egad, more laws?
Some say, as suggested by the liberal media (remember now, even some of these liberals are genuinely sincere even though they are loath to note the same quality among conservative lawmakers) that certain religious conservatives are attempting to legislate "their own" morals upon others.
First of all I say, hogwash! Second of all, just what is it the liberals have been saddling us with ever since super-lib Franklin D. Roosevelt stacked the Supreme Court if it wasn't in order to cram their (his) idea of morality down people's throats?
Every Democrat with any power at all since then has steadfastly appointed swarms of politically liberal judges to both state and federal courts. Small wonder that we now have more sympathy for the murderer than for the victim.
And last but not least, just what is all this about name-calling (once) in the heat of political battle? Gosh, a conservative referred to a liberal as "queer-lover." Ever wonder why that term nauseates so? Think about it.
But I wonder even more how it would have looked to the public today if those 26 conservative legislators had been allowed to get their messages reported all session long through a likewise sincere but equally conservative and therefore friendly media.
Maybe the name-calling hysteria would now properly condemn: "extreme conservatives, ultra conservatives, Neanderthal conservatives, irresponsible conservatives, negative conservatives who are uncaring, who have no compassion, are against education, against children, against the poor." These are the right-wind kooks.
These labels are the liberals name-calling. How often do you hear the media "hiss" in their reports critical of a - left-wing kook?
Yes, my friends, it was the liberals who started and perfected most of the art of name-calling.
Subsidizing Fishing, Hunting
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
April 20, 1986
On the matter of name-calling there is both malice and misunderstanding. In the Press-Tribune Monday was an AP wire service story headlined: "Sportsmen fault Idaho lands request."
It was apparently spawned by Lt. Gov. David Leroy's request for the federal government to turn over to the state of Idaho control of two sections of land per township. That would doubt the 2.5 million acres in public school endowment lands Idaho received at statehood. Income thus generated by the lands goes for education support, according to the news article.
This is Leroy's idea to get more money for schools without raising taxes. Given the fact that there is net negative cash flow (cash loss) in the Forest Service's management of "our" federal forests, the idea may have some merit. But the welfare state mentality largely supported by "education" for these many years may have rendered the idea - too little too late.
Here's why. Ron Mitchell, executive director of the Idaho Sportsmen's Coalition, said last week that the proposed land transfer was just an attempt to sell off land now used freely by sportsmen. The key word here is "freely." Apparently it is OK to subsidize Mitchell's special interest, i.e., sportsmen, but not the farmers, dairymen, automobile manufacturing, schooling from the cradle to the grave, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
This is what the Gramm-Rudman bill just enacted by Congress is trying to stop. The huge and spiraling federal debt threatens to "freely" drown all Americans - not just a few.
It is too bad, too, because so many politicians have promised so much so "freely" in order to get elected. Unfortunately it usually works. In fact the idea has been around for centuries, but Americans don't read much history.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the French genius who came to the U.S. to study the early American miracle's fabulous success said: "It is true, but as soon as the American public discovers they can vote themselves largess (freebies) out of the public treasury their system (of democracy) will fall apart." Our gigantic public debt is but the grotesque proof of Tocqueville's prediction.
Even so, the sportsmen's Mitchell apparently couldn't care less. Here he is again: "Leroy wants to put these lands, our (get that word - our) public hunting and fishing lands, up on the auction block ... My God, he's proposing development of an area 1.5 times the size of the entire Boise, Clearwater or Payette forests."
Never mind that Mitchell does not object to the widows, orphans, handicapped and people on extremely limited incomes paying taxes to support his association's freebies to hunt and fish. Who said there's no such thing as a free lunch? Depends on whose ox is being gored. And all America is being hooked on it. It's a real "drug."
Leroy, the GOP standard-bearer candidate for governor, said that the (his) proposal was an "important long shot and a well-timed long shot" to help ensure adequate funding for schools. Given the fact that the public (read, government) school lobby is the largest, most powerful and best-financed lobby in the United States it is open to reasonable question whether that special interest deserves all the money they get even now.
One supposes, however, neither Democrat nor Republican candidates would have the moral guts to raise, even ask rhetorically, such a seldom asked question.
But Mitchell finally resorted to name-calling and hence had the last word in the AP news tale claiming the idea probably stemmed from Leroy's gubernatorial campaign manager Helen Chenoweth. She was instrumental in forming the once tremendously popular Sagebrush Rebellion in the late 1970s.
Said he, "Such ultra-right wing characters like Chenoweth and (her partner) Vern Ravenscroft complement Leroy's demonstrated anti-fish-and-wildlife mindset." This suggests Mitchell both misunderstands and intends malice.
And it's too bad, I say. I mean name-calling. But it's real-life and hooting one's opposition down like the liberals (mostly) are so prone to do only confuses. One can say many things about Ravenscroft including that he is a reformed Democrat, but he is simply one of the most resource-minded, decent, best-informed and least anti-fish-and-wildlife persons in the entire state of Idaho.
Please note that this writer has not stooped, however, to calling the sportsman's Ron Mitchell a damn liar. I doubt that he is. Stupidity usually accounts for more public policy error than does malice.
IEA Targets Forrey, Allan
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
April 27, 1986
There is a massive attempt by some educators to oust Rep. Robert Forrey, R-Nampa, from his seat in the Idaho Legislature. My sources tell me also that Rep. Liz Allan, R-Caldwell, is number two on the so-called hit list of the Idaho Education Association (IEA), easily the most powerful of all labor-union organizations in the state.
There are some interesting aspects of the Canyon County GOP situation that seem to escape proper emphasis in the media. They include Reps. Robert Schaefer, Ron Crane and some others to a somewhat lesser degree, but the Forrey-Allan duo being singled out tells us something.
The government education crowd in the county are led more or less by GOP Reps. Janet Hay and Dorothy Reynolds and school librarian Patti Ann Lodge, accompanied by Press-Tribune columnist Marguerite Brown and various school officials who understandably see their special interest as maintaining the education status quo, i.e., more tax money for government schools.
But maintaining the liberal status quo doth not a conservative make. At least it does not when it is the liberal status quo that they attempt to maintain. Furthermore, it is not only more tax money these usually well-meaning zealots want, but thought control, too.
Now then, before our friends get their egalitarian noses out of joint let me hasten to add that "thought control" is not a dirty word because, slice it any way you want, education is a form of indoctrination. My effort is an attempt to get this out on top of the table. We should all recognize this and be honest about it.
This writer has known for a long time of the government-school advocates' extreme disdain of Forrey since his criticisms and analyses of the Idaho school system are keen, crisp and loud, if not very well understood. Much of the criticism has tended to center around what critics like to name-call as "wearing God on their shirtsleeves."
While both Forrey and Allan are indeed responsibly religious, each making no bones about the subject, a blanket accusation is frequently made that Reps. Ron Crane and Robert Schaefer also harbor similar "sinister" intentions to ram their religion down the voter's throats. But what's so special about Forrey and Allan?
I know these people personally (and there are others of similar persuasion) and I do not believe that that is their intention, i.e., to ram religion. It is rather they see our society being torn to shreds in many ways, including the fact that the Bible is one book that has already been "censored" out of the school system, yet books literally filled with four-letter words are often recommended reading. Ironically, when Forrey and others complain about this fact, it is curiously they who are scolded for censorship and brainwashing.
Still, however one views the concerns of the Forrey forces or the Janet Hay forces, certainly no one can say that both of these fine citizens do not care about "education" and certainly none can say either of them does not sincerely concern themselves with "education" matters.
I put quotes around the word education because it obviously means different things to different people and good people do disagree. It's too bad, however, when the disagreements are not open.
Which brings me to something of a new awareness of the real issue, not just the alleged one. The Forrey forces are said to be "the religious crowd" and are to be resisted because religion in schools is somehow sinister - separation of church and state, remember?
But the recent addition to the IEA hit list of Rep. Liz Allan, a relatively new but dedicated student of the freedom ideal of the free market, private property, limited government philosophy together with its moral and spiritual antecedents, has just now opened my eyes and inflamed the eyes of the statists.
The reason for so much intense opposition to Forrey and Allan is not so much their religious persuasion, but rather the articulate and persuasive case each of them has been making toward the privatization of the compulsory school system in Idaho.
Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman's voucher system proposal of a few years ago started an intellectual and controversial revolution for privatizing education. Forrey and Allan are caught up in its revival, hence the real revolutionaries have just stood up. Bless their hearts.
Giving Out Pats on the Back
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
May 4, 1986
This column has for years been critical of the Idaho government's compulsory school system and much of our non-government schools for their mostly statist philosophies, but it is also a national problem.
For example, 63 percent of Japanese children attend nursery school, only 32 percent of Americans; 90 percent of the Japanese students finish high school, only 75 percent of Americans students finish. Daily average for homework in Japan is two hours, in America only one-half hour. Japan has much lower absenteeism, and much less violence and delinquency than in the U.S. The list goes on, but what do we do?
We tend mostly to look at how fast we are becoming a second-rate industrial nation, then clamor only for tariffs, trade protectionism and nationalism. "Made in USA" used to mean quality products, but now quality is too often "Made in Japan," and "Made in Germany." Sony, Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, Nikon, BMW, Canon and a host of other products make their owners smile with glee at their pride of ownership and appreciation of superior workmanship.
What do we hear, then, of schools and school teachers in the midst of all this? Want for more pay, of course, but what of the values, especially cultural values that are emphasized and de-emphasized? When did you last hear of a teacher's strike demanding more discipline and better attitudes for learning?
Well, one teacher at least is doing something about cultural values - all by himself. And the added cost of the school is virtually zero, believe it or not, so I doubt we will see many teacher-of-the-year awards for him from the egalitarian establishment. In any event, here comes at least one pat on the back to a clever, innovative and resourceful teacher.
Recently I received the following form letter: "Dear Mr. Smeed, We hope the speech class at Vallivue (high school, Caldwell) includes a lot more than just giving speeches.
"One of our assignments is for each student to give a speech about a person who has influenced his or her life the most. You are the person that (sic) was selected by one of the students for his or her tribute speech. I want to share the speech with you and just let you know that you really mean a lot to someone at Vallivue.
"Thanks for taking time to reach our to others. Sincerely, (signed) Rob Lundgren, speech instructor."
Now then, in order to show at least in part how Lundgren's extracurricular effort to share his student's and his own expository efforts with outsiders and thus reflect credit on his profession I fear I must risk seeming too immodest, but here goes. Following are some selected quotes from one of his students whose assignment speech he sent along to me:
"A person who has influenced me a great deal in my life is Ralph Smeed ... has influenced me in many ways. For one, he is an old-fashioned type of person and has always tried to make sure that I remember some old-fashioned, but well needed things, such as good manners. Whenever Ralph comes over he harps at me (and my brothers), for example, to excuse ourselves when we leave the table, or not to interrupt. One thing he hates is to be interrupted, and that is definitely one thing I have learned not to do around Ralph.
"I would also like to think it has affected me around other people also and that his manners have worn off on me. He has given me an example to set my standards to."
(Gentle reader, please know that my manners may not be all that good. Still, it is really what she said and now I'm stuck with it.)
"He has taught me this just by simply treating me the way he has. He is an adult who treats me as an equal. It is very easy for people who are older than you to act superior to you, even if they don't realize it.
"Ralph has always shown respect to me by just listening to what I might have to say or speaking to me like he cares what I think. He also does not interrupt me."
Carrie (that's her name) went on to say I showed affection to her family and some more personal things I won't bore you with now, but this delightful little lady closed with what may be the best: "I would like to think that everyone is as lucky as I am to have someone who cares that much for you to share themselves with you as Ralph has done for me."
Well, Carrie Mertz, thank you. The Japanese will have to try harder to copy and produce the quality of a fine young lady such as you. If successful, I'll wager they would dearly love to import at least one of this country's finest products, i.e., a teacher such as your Mr. Lundgren.
I just hope that some day educators like him will have their salaries determined by merit rather than by seniority.
Commentary
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
May 11, 1986
When a dog bites a man it is "news" to the man, at least, but frequently to almost no one else. On the other hand, when a man bites a big - that is usually news. Not always, however.
A group of union members who, interestingly enough, support the freedom to work concept embodied in a recent Idaho Right-to-Work legislation have filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC).
The charges accuse eight television stations of "unfair" treatment of their (member's case against compulsory membership in labor unions.
Roughly stated, the complainer's story is that the TV stations are not telling that side of the union member's case largely represented by Corey Lane. He is presently a member of the Teamster's Union and head of Union Members for Right-to-Work in this state. Controversy has raged for many years over this issue and due to the emotionalism generated by the union's powerful special interest lobby the public is easily confused. Said confusion is further compounded by GOP politicians who tend to sweep the right-to-work (RTW) controversy under the rug hoping then they won't have to take sides publicly and not only lose votes but bring in to the state big union political money.
For many years the big union political action committees (PACs) have been able to fend off an open vote in the Idaho legislature in concert with the Idaho AFL-CIO PAC, but last session the legislature passed a RTW law even over the veto of Democrat Governor John Evans. Since then the AFL-CIO has forced a statewide referendum in an effort to repeal the RTW law, thus opening up the heated and emotional battle all over again.
One tool in the union's kit to stop the RTW crusade, some years ago, was to demand equal TV time against their chief enemies. Both the Idaho Freedom to Work Committee and the National Right to Work Committee were (are) their enemies and the union's major political opposition. On the face of it "equal time" seems eminently fair, except that a few years ago the union pled extreme poverty and asked the Idaho TV stations not only for equal time but at no charge - free. Believe it or not they got it. Mind you, the RTW committee forces had to pay cash for their TV side of the story, but the wealthy labor union forces got theirs free.
That is the way the cookie continued to crumble until Corey Lane the gutsy and articulate union member from Caldwell came along. He says he has had a bellyful of his compulsory union dues being used to pay for political actions most of which he bitterly opposes. One would think such a simple and forthright position as outlined by Lane would bring to our watch-dog-of-the-people's-freedom, i.e., the news media, both outrage and newsworthiness. But the story just barely makes any news - and no outrage at all.
Well, Lane is not like so many lay-me-down-to-sleep Republican moderate "negotiators." He seems to think the best defense is a good offense, so being honestly poor, certainly in comparison to the big guns in the RTW controversy, he asked those same eight Idaho television stations which gave free time to his AFL-CIO opponents to give him free time now.
They said no! Turned him down flat. Seems like dirty pool, too, doesn't it? In Lane's recent press release announcing the fact his members were filing charges with the FCC against the TV stations, he says: "Pro-RTW union members have been forced to help pay for these anti-RTW ads, and all we want it to make sure the citizens of Idaho understand how deceptive the ads are and how unfair ..."
In a statement to this writer, Lane makes an excellent, righteously indignant and moral case for what might be called "man bites dog" newsworthiness: "Union members are forced to pay a dues assessment as a condition of 'membership in good standing' (a union term). If they refuse to pay the assessment they will not be able to participate in union functions, attend meetings, vote, hold office or in any way say how their regular dues are to be spent by the union officials."
On Lane's press release letterhead is printed member's names who belong to specific union locals in Boise, Pocatello, Caldwell, Shelley, Ashton, Lewiston, Idaho Falls, Nampa and Kimberly. In my mind that's - men, literally, "biting the dog" - hence should be remarkably newsworthy. To their credit it made the Press-Tribune allright, along with several radio stations and even some TV stations carried it. So far, however, it seems not likely to appear at all in the state's largest newspaper.
So much for the "people's right to know," let alone understand, about an arrogant, if even legal, doubt-standard right here in Idaho. Wouldn't it be nice if we could routinely witness the different media member's blowing their "progressive" whistles on each other from time to time - for a change?
Pornography, Political-Style
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
May 18, 1986
Violations of good taste are gaining in momentum. The problem is not the sex magazines this time, it's the politicians. That's right, "political pornography." Just how "raw" political propaganda has to get in order to be considered pornographic will inevitably result in diverse and possibly hostile opinions, but two recent incidents are so flagrant as to be without question as to their pornographic content.
Chuck Lempesis is a candidate for Idaho lieutenant governor and a rather glib lawyer in north Idaho who makes his living off a large government contract ($173,315 per year each year since 1980) defending criminals, including drug pushers and drunk drivers.
Although Chuck seemed credible enough at first, something happened on the way to the office, i.e., his bid for lieutenant governor was going nowhere. His opponent, Butch Otter, had the important issue on his side, namely the economy with which he is quite familiar.
Otter, president of Simplot International, was on to something. Having had great success finding new foreign markets for Simplot's products taking their international sales from $300,000 six years ago to more than $31 million in sales last year, Otter sees a need and is in good shape to help Idaho producers. They need to find new markets for some of their 18,000 (believe it or not) other products, thus helping the economy of Idaho get moving again.
Such potential leadership is hard to compete with in politics, especially if one is, like Lempesis, living off a big government contract.
It is true, Lempesis has done well jumping on the now popular right-to-work issue bandwagon, but Butch's long-standing (a couple decades at least) forth-right support for right-to-work tends to overshadow Lempesis on this issue also.
So what does one do in such a case? Well, if his name is Chuck Lempesis he resorts to "political pornography" in a blatant enough dose to incite even the least sensitive spectator.
This includes especially the friendly and concerned "Bible Thumpers" whose sensitivity to dirty ideas in today's textbooks tends to be weak-kneed along their understandable but sometimes overwrought sensitivity to dirty words in their children's school books.
Lawyer Lempesis' flight from legitimate issues on the other hand and his low-brow attack on Otter's voting record just may rate him (Lempesis) as the "King of Idaho Political Pornography."
In addition to the north Idaho public defender's asinine charge that Otter wanted to remove laws to punish drug pushers, let us examine for a moment another aspect of his low-brow attack.
Lempesis says Otter's policies will erode "family values." He claims this is true because of one vote Otter made in the Legislature and one newspaper article 10 years ago.
Forget for the moment the fact that a lieutenant governor has little or no say in these matters, and even forget if 10-year-old newspaper articles and 15-year-old votes were the criteria. In that event Lempesis should be explaining his former active participation in the radical left-wing Students for a Democratic Society.
So just what was the character of these "family threatening" incidents charged by lawyer Lempesis? Well, Otter's vote in the Legislature was one to not make the breathalizer test mandatory. This was done for two reasons.
At that time (years ago) these tests were less than reliable. Also, Otter then asked, what if a driver passed the test and the traffic officer still had probable cause for pulling the suspect over because his driving was erratic? Perhaps such a test for alcohol should not be the only criteria available. Was this vote, then, all that bad? I don't think so.
Still, one must admit that it could probably be argued on both sides, but certainly it could never be considered worse than lawyer Lempesis' using all of his legal prowess to get drunk drivers and ne'er-do-wells off the hook. And what's even worse - at taxpayers expense!
Now for the newspaper article. What, indeed, was said that could cause one to fear for the very existence of the "family?" Well, Butch said back in those years that if one really wants to nail the drug pushers one should also make them liable for civil prosecution, i.e., take the huge profit motive out of pushing illegal hard drugs. Parents and/or users would be allowed to sue drug pushers.
This is apparently what Lempesis thinks is bad mainly because such is not the standard "pass-a-law mentality." If we merely let the police powers and government-employed lawyers such as Lempesis treat the drug problem their bureaucratic numbers will increase forever.
So what to do with political pornographers? Maybe it's time to package Mr. Lempesis himself in a "plain brown wrapper" and send him back to California or Arizona or wherever he came from, then elect Butch Otter who understands that while we cannot legislate morals successfully we can indeed legislate freedom for Idaho workers with a yes vote (on proposition No. 1) on right-to-work.
Then we can hire one of Idaho's best salesmen, Butch Otter, to help market those products. That, friends, is where jobs come from.
Trust Me, Religion Here to Stay
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
May 25, 1986
While this writer is no particular follower of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, the controversial jurist can be applauded for an excellent statement giving us useful perspective on perhaps the most controversial subject before us today. That subject is religion, and since it is not going to go away (trust me) perhaps we should take a little closer look at it.
The purveyors of the subject have been accused of too often rushing to "city hall" to pass a law for everything under the sun, especially for what is referred to as trying to "legislate morality." There is some merit to the charge, too, but first Justice Douglas's quote: "Men may believe what they cannot prove ... Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others."
Douglas was also making the point that men should not be unduly put upon to prove their religious doctrines or beliefs. Well, this then presents something of a dilemma. It stood for generations, however, under the umbrella of religious freedom. Many still believe this idea to be the very crux of freedom in America. But there are hostilities coming up - methinks, and they should not be pooh-poohed.
For example, Sam Lang, political reporter and columnist for the Press-Tribune, writes May 20, 1986: "... the Legislature must initiate a spirit of cooperation among its various factions ... and that religious and moral considerations have little or not place in the public legislative process - that the separation of church and state must be maintained in order to preserve our system of democracy." Get that: "little or no place." Gosh!
Now then, just where does Lang get the idea we even have a democracy? Maybe Sam's pledge of allegiance is: "... to the flag and to the DEMOCRACY for which it stands ..." It's not at all clear, but many newspaper reporters tend to do likewise.
While I don't agree with Lang we are nonetheless indebted to him for highlighting a serious problem which tends not to be articulated very well by many conservatives, namely, that there most assuredly is something big and wrong and growing in our society: Drug and alcohol abuse, sex crimes and homosexual-related diseases such as the deadly AIDs not to mention outrageously clogged courtrooms and a growing trend toward violence and terrorism both on television and in the streets. This is reality!
So what are the conservatives to do? Ignore the obvious? Even some liberals acknowledge that something is indeed wrong and getting worse. These caring folks tend to think we can cure all or nearly all of society's ills with free formal schooling which they lump under the broad label of "education."
Maybe they are right, at least partly, but they fail to define their Utopian dream for a literate, adaptable, healthy and moral society and just who should pay for and direct it. When they try they do so in their broad, sweeping, euphemistic and statist terms they make their skeptical, conservative and concerned adversaries even more skeptical - and adversarial.
Lang points up the latter by labeling the conservative's concern that "the public education system is wrought with inefficiency and moral decay" by calling them "alleged problems" (Lang's term). He says the concerned conservatives answer is: "expansion of privately operated educational facilities." But he misses their point.
They want to be left free to choose their own ideas, doctrines or beliefs as suggested, substantively, in Justice Douglas's quote and not have the government ram its statist "doctrines" down their throats via its compulsory attendance laws. The latter are financed by a compulsory tax checkoff system over which they have little or no control. In George Orwell's infamous "newspeak" liberals call it freedom.
Lang's column suggests he further misunderstands conservative legislators' concerns when he writes: "attacks on the morality of the IEA and its parent organization, the NEA, are well-known."
This is simply not true, although I think Sam believes he is being truthful. Here's why. That there are attacks on these powerful union lobbying organizations is indeed "well-known," but it it not - repeat, not well known exactly what the nature of these attacks are.
For example, when Lang and the media communicate an "attack" on the IEA-NEA, the newsmen seldom relate the exact charges, i.e., that they actually favor pro-homosexual policies. They merely report an attack was made.
The charges almost always consist of exact quotes that the IEA-NEA opponents lift right out of the pages of the IEA-NEA very own training manuals and advocacy publications.
Almost never is the public treated to Lang's or his colleague's critical and sincere commentary as to whether the influential teacher unions' own left-leaning policies are good or bad, too permissive or too restrictive, moral or immoral.
Oh Well, We Can Always Read
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
June 1, 1986
Last Tuesday's election produced some upsets, some surprises and some ho-hums, of course. Most disappointing are the Monday morning quarterbacks who say "I knew it all along." But what folks need most of all for predicting is insight about the real game in life, i.e., voluntary-ism versus government (read, The State).
It is true, fortunately, some folks possess more insight about things to come than do others, hence these should be cataloged and respected as some rare and rare and helpful advice for use later on. One is reminded of the humorist who said: "Predictions are a haphazard business, particularly when they are about the future."
So I will not write this week much of a wrap-up of said election except to relate a little story. It may furnish a bit of welcome perspective to a few folks, especially a moderate sized group of disappointed, perhaps disgruntled, conservatives.
It is said by some of our detractors that there is usually only a small loss when a conservative's entire personal library is destroyed in a fire since it involves so little. Both volumes can generally be replaced, they say, at any garden variety comic-book store in the neighborhood.
Such a smart-aleck crack isn't always true, of course, and it is well if one has enough ego to withstand our detractor's stinging, if warped, sense of humor without seeming excessively indifferent.
Unfortunately there is inherent in the term "conservative" at least two senses of a proper definition (1) traditional, i.e., if it was good enough for grandfather it is good enough for me, or, if it works don't fix it; and (2) in present-day parlance there is the Barry Goldwater (of the 1960s) sense of the word.
He advised us, you remember, to (a) sell the TVA to private enterprise because to do otherwise was to glorify and perpetuate a lousy socialism or statism of one kind or another and (b) to get rid of Social Security as a government program because it was a shibboleth, a bankrupt scheme and a sham that was leading the American people down the road to disaster. He proved to be extremely right (no pun), of course, as later events were to expose.
But in regard to those conservatives today who find it in the interest of themselves and their country to do some reading and homework thus becoming more articulate spokespersons for their cause, they face a rather formidable hurdle.
Where do they go, to whom do they talk in order to find, for example, books of sufficient quality and stature so they can become well-educated in their philosophy instead of merely well-"schooled"?
My liberal friends should not laugh for such a task is none too easy - given the fact those of a liberal (read, Utopian, interventionist, collectivism, change-for-the-sake-of-change folks) virtually own and control the American intellectual infrastructure.
Most liberals in education, in spite of their loud proclamations to the contrary, fight fiercely to fend off almost any substantive change from the liberal intellectual status quo. Especially they do this in the form of libraries and good books. They "stack the deck" for people who read. So what to do?
Comes now one of the country's foremost scholars, teachers, economists and decent human beings in America, my wonderful friend, the late Dr. F.A. "Baldy" Harper, founder of the Institute for Humane Studies now on the campus of George Mason University. He sent to me early in the 1970s a great book, The Power of the People by Felix Morley.
This ever-so-kind and wise man recognized our "conservative" book problem and insisted I read Morley's work. What it says should be of interest both to those conservatives who lost last Tuesday and to those who won.
Morley, one of the only group of three brothers ever to win (each brother) a Rhodes Scholarship, wrote this about the nature of the American republic (too often mislabeled a "democracy"). "It is designed," he explains, "to provide a people who are instinctively democratic with a government calculated to safeguard them from the excesses of a political system ... (Democracy, as a method of government, that is affected with an instability that swings easily into tyranny.
"How to provide a democratic people with a stable republican government was the problem ... The formula they (founding fathers) found is not above criticism. But it has worked."
In this connection, it is interesting to note that later in the book, where Morley discusses The State, which he incisively distinguishes from Society, his conclusions are strikingly similar to the anti-State philosophy so forcefully put forth by only a handful of good writers. Morley's distinction is simply put: "The State, in short, subjects people, whereas Society associates them voluntarily."
This is a radically new idea, conservatives, so don't fret too much. In fact some would call it a classical liberal idea. And who knows - maybe, just maybe, if we will all read and talk to them about Morley's great book the liberals, come next election, could get to thinking voluntarism is - their idea.
If they do, then we will all have won.
Egad - A Free-Market College
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
June 8, 1986
Dr. Paul Dixon is the president of a small, 1,800 student, four-year liberal arts college, Cedarville College in Ohio.
Writing in the current issue of his college's magazine, Torch, Cedarville's intellectual coach says: "... free enterprise, the economic system of our country is under increasing attack. The attack is coming from religious groups ..." Sad, of course, but true.
Sound unbelievable coming from a college president these days? Oh yes, one can find an occasional proxy or lesser campus official who will say the magic words privately once in a while, but seldom so plainly and never in one of their major publications.
One hears it even less frequently with such emphasis as Dixon's in the Torch spring issue.
On page three his lead statement is even an unusually articulate editorial entitled, "Free Enterprise: Value It, Promote It, Protect It." Get this pitch for individualism as opposed to the all-too-typical campus "group-think" tendency: "Since the American Revolution, individual creativity, drive, and investment have produced a system known as the free market or free enterprise - a system that surpasses all other economic systems throughout history ... when socialist countries open the door a crack to free enterprise principles, amazing results occur."
But Dixon's real mortar shell for a campus captain was this unusual projectile, "Private ownership is the main tenet of a free-market economy. The religious expression of giving to others presupposes ownership. Among the Ten Commandments, the seventh urges man to not steal the private property of others." And right hot off the griddle of a real degree-granting college campus, too - believe it or not.
While the Ohio college has 1,800 full-time students, their Christian commitment is not downplayed. In fact their policy of refusing any type of government funding is interestingly frank: "... is not primarily based on the fact that free enterprise works and is overwhelmingly successful. Rather ... we believe free enterprise permits the economic climate in which the Christian can best function in obedience to God." Egad! There he said it - God, even above government.
In today's climate of a sort of worship, almost, of the state religion - education (undefined, of course) - one can only marvel at a college on whose campus the name of Adam Smith and his magnum opus The Wealth of Nations is exalted alongside an enthusiastic "obedience to God."
If one mentions, conversely, the conservative the Rev. Jerry Falwell in polite society today, immediately one can anticipate an angry challenge to justify the compulsory "legislating of morals" - both a true and false charge, of course, but one virtually blind to compulsion of everything else from seat belts to day care and occupational licensure of all kinds. At least in Russia the labels are more honest. There they call them "work permits."
The Baptists are responsible for this unusual and outspokenly capitalist-oriented college whose president speaks so fluently the language of both reason and religion. They join the Mormons' BYU, the Catholics' Notre Dame and other churches' great educational institutions within today's popularly regarded and overworked facade, i.e., separation of church and state.
With tongues hanging out at halfmast most of those spouting the admonition really mean it tends rather to get in their way of another "worship." I mean, of course, the reverence and adoration for - statism, Utopianism and the Welfare State. These, too, can be religions.
Here is Cedarville College President Dixon's almost unutterable rationale amid today's religious, ragtag and bobtailed rout. It is so forthright and decent as to be almost loving. I just wish "my church" believed it. Here it is:
"As a Christian institution, we stress free enterprise because it is biblical. It is taught in the classrooms, especially through business administration, our largest academic department." How about that, folks?
Gets better next week, so stay tuned.
Economic Liberty Our 'Glue'
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
June 15, 1986
Last week readers of this column heard a brief introduction to Cedarville College, an 1,800-student, liberal-arts school in Cedarville, Ohio. This unique and, quite apparently, competent four-year accredited college has a publication with a magazine format.
In fact, Boise State University only recently has gone from the traditional tabloid format to the magazine type. However, judging from the two school's magazines (one from each), I noticed it is there that the similarity screeches to a halt.
The unabashed and frequent use of the term "free enterprise" in the Cedarville publication, The Torch, moves one to wonder if this school is actually a real live college in the U.S. For example, inside the front cover is an interesting, old-fashioned photo taken in 1901 of four men operating machines in the shop of the National Cash Register Co.
Typical of most institutions of higher learning today would have been a similar photos' caption alluding to the sweat shop conditions or some such of that day. The Torch's caption: "Free enterprise is part of the heritage of American business ... machinery and operators look antiquated in this photo ... However (it) reminds us of how far one of this country's major businesses has come because of the entrepreneurial freedom provided (by our) ... system."
Let me hasten to freely admit I am selecting more or less choice quotes and examples from this liberal arts college's campus paper, but I am truly amazed. Such statements as appear in Cedarville's Torch are so terribly rare appearing at all in almost any college or university campus publication as to cause one to nominate them for Ripley's Believe It or Not.
College proxy Dr. Paul Dixon's lead editorial in this particular issue closes with a real doozie: "Let us not take for granted the free enterprise system and the benefits we have come to enjoy through it. Let us thank God that we live in a country where free enterprise is practiced. Not only must we value it, but we must do all we can to promote it and protect it."
But the real rare-for-the-record in today's campus papers is this line closing the above quote of Dixon's: "For when economic freedom is removed, political and religious freedom soon follow."
How long has it been, folks, since you've heard even a politician refer to "economic freedom" as being the linchpin, the glue, so to speak, that holds secure the ever so important freedoms - religious and political?
Most politicians prattle long and loud about some abstract and ill-defined "freedom," but have precious little to offer as to the fact that economic freedom is only slightly above a four-letter word at most universities these days.
Lest you think Dixon's is merely rhetoric at Cedarville, here are some random excerpts from the chairman of the Standard (Cash) Register Co., Roy Linton of Dayton, Ohio: "I am proud of the free enterprise system ... I enrolled at Cedarville College in 1935 ..." His company employed 4,500 people when he retired recently, saying: "My observations as a free enterpriser of 67 years cause me to favor this economic system over all others."
Nor is the above tycoon of business the only one graduating from this unusual liberal arts college started and still operated by some of the Baptists. (Remember most of our great universities were, and many still are, church-inspired and privately financed.)
Robert Hartenstein, the handsome president of Hartco, Inc., poses for his company's full-page ad in the Torch. The letter "t" in Hartco has been reworked as shown in the photo's background into serving as a religious cross and "t" for a rather obvious double purpose. The latter is emphasized by the ad's statement explaining: "... he and his staff are committed to managing the company according to biblical principles..."
His story is detailed elsewhere in the magazine, but an "ad" for the college on the Torch's back cover sums it all up rather well. It is a statement by David Kelby, a senior vice president for General Mills, Inc., of Minneapolis, Minn.: "I am impressed by Cedarville College, the curriculum ... students are ... solidly grounded ... (with a combination of) a sound education, leadership experiences, and spiritual values. That's the reason General Mills continues to recruit at Cedarville - one of only 13 colleges and universities from which we recruit ... in accounting and finance."
One can hardly help wonder, then, how it is that words "religion, God, church, spiritual values," etc., etc., today are quite so controversial. Could it be that President Reagan's observation was so overlooked this year by many Idaho legislators and most members of the media? Here's what he said: "Freedom OF religion was not meant by the founding fathers to be freedom FROM religion."
In any case, it is apparent that Cedarville's President (Dixon) knows the differences and agrees with America's President (Reagan) whose prestige on most campuses is about the same as "free enterprise's."
Either way, I say, three cheers for Cedarville College.
Labor's Deceptive Poll
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
June 29, 1986
This writer received a telephone call recently from a sweet young voice identifying herself as taking a poll for "Idahoans Against Deception." She asked if I would agree to answer some questions. I replied: "That depends ... but let's try it and see."
She explained "their" mission was against deception for Idaho voters, but only when I pressed did it become obvious the so-called poll was a propaganda ploy via a telephone campaign for organized labor's AFL-CIO.
Now then, these polls are nothing particularly new, but inasmuch as counting noses nowadays seems to be this country's major method of determining "truth" I want to explain how bizarre it can get - and how utterly and devastatingly deceptive.
First question: at this time would you vote "yes" or "no" on the right-to-work (RTW) referendum which will be on the ballot next November? I answered "yes."
Second question: If you knew that the freedom-to-work committee (same as RTW) was funded by out of state money, would that make a difference in how you felt about the RTW issue?
Answer: No, because the AFL-CIO headquarters are also out of state. They were also responsible for shutting down north Idaho's largest silver mine after its union members in Idaho voted overwhelmingly to go back to work with a specified cut in pay in an effort to keep the mine open.
Third question: Here are some reasons some people say they would vote against the RTW referendum. I'd like you to tell me whether you think each reason is (a) a very good reason to vote against it, (b) a good reason to vote against it, or (c) not a good reason to vote against it. (Note: three times the power of suggestion; "... vote against it").
- Additional government funding and increased tax money will be required to enforce the RTW law. (Just why, of course, was not "revealed").
- Legal experts say the law is an extremely vague and poorly-written proposal. (The sweet voice neglected to say just whose "experts" she meant. No doubt the union's experts. The law was actually drafted by Idaho's attorney general).
- County prosecutors will be forced to investigate even minor violations, and convictions could lead to fines and jail sentences.
Egad, since when is a person's loss of his freedom of choice a "minor" crime? Apparently it's "minor" when the union's huge income from dues is at stake, same as when the employer's financial survival is at stake.
Please note that in the above-mentioned north Idaho silver mine case, Bunker Hill, both the company and its union members were completely dumped due to the out of state union chiefs making the mine owners completely close down the mine.
- The real intent of the right-to-work law is to lower wages and take away employee rights. (Jumpin' catfish! Right here I began scolding the sweet young-voiced pollster with: "How in the world can you people talk about deception? These are the most deceptive questions on a poll I've ever heard in my life.) Shame on you!" In fact, according to the AFL-CIO's own study (September 1985), 80 percent of all RTW states have higher per capita income than Idaho.
Fourth question: Which of these do you think is the best argument against the RTW law? (Note, there's that suggestion again).
Fifth question: Now that you have heard the arguments against the RTW law, would you vote "yes" or "no" on the referendum next November?
That, ladies and gentlemen, concluded the so-called poll conducted by the AFL-CIO labor union in behalf of trying to brainwash the Idaho voters. I asked the "sweet young voice" conducting the pool what her name was (she already had mine), who was paying for the poll and would she kindly mail to me a list of said questions?
She agreed to, but did not mail me the questions. Small wonder. Somebody was maybe too ashamed to do so, but I got them anyway.
Here's one of the whys of all this. It matters almost not at all whether one's charges, claims or counter-charges make any sense. Now, remember that. What does matter is how much the ultra-liberal media makes of this massive massacre of the "people's right to know."
Adolph Hitler's Goebbels said it better: "If you tell a big lie - loud enough and often enough, the dull-witted public can be persuaded to believe it." So questions need to be asked, but not merely for propagandizing.
About all that the AFL-CIO's "big lie" left unasked was: "Would you vote against RTW if you knew that it attracted AIDS?"
When Messengers Kill Kings
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
July 6, 1986
There was a time in history when the kings or potentates, upon receiving bad news via special courier, shouted "kill the messenger." Fortunately, today, less violent means are used to convey displeasure. In fact, more and more evidence suggests the "messengers" all-too-often have the power to kill the king.
Of course, when I say "kill the king," I mean members of the media instead of messengers in the day so fold. Time was not so long ago when members of the media were almost routinely referred to as reporters. Their duty and/or profession in those days was a zeal to report the news instead of mold the news into their own god-like image.
How long has it been since you heard of one newspaper "scooping" another? Too often the "scoop" has been replaced by the "angle." By that I mean one tends to get a story nowadays which may be so laden with a reporter's ultra-liberal slant that it may well not be compared at all as "scooping" another paper or TV reporter, that is, if such superficial scannings usually made by TV people can be called reporting, but rather getting a story with a "better" (read, more liberal) angle.
But all that is beginning to change and if not in large measure at least in some good and substantial ways. Perhaps the principal harbinger of this change is the Washington-based Accuracy in Media (AIM) headed up by its chairman, Reed Irvine, who is beyond a shadow of a doubt the most outspoken, intelligent and articulate media critic in America.
The three giant networks, ABC, NBC and CBS, are Irvine's intellectual meat and fair game for his sharp, incisive and bazooka-like barbs when he exposes their liberal inconsistencies and left-slanted reporting.
Irvine is a card-carrying conservative whose newsletter, the AIM Report, regularly infuriates most of the media across the land. I say "most" simply because most of the media members are just that - liberal. Some are quite frank to tell us they are.
The gigantic New York Times and Washington Post are, but two, and many say the worst, of about 1,200 daily newspapers across the U.S. They, too, are frequently frustrated by AIM's piercing parade of publisher's perverted polemics passing as "news," but often with such a liberal slant as to make Pope John Paul's main church pronouncements appear to emanate from the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City.
If you think this is too much of an exaggeration just consult Peter Braestrip's two-volume research documentary Big Story, Vol. I, and Big Story, Vol. II, on how the American major news media actually reported a massive big lie in the Vietnam War. The Tet offensive, clearly a big win over the communists for South Vietnam and the U.S. was all but totally "reported" as a devastating defeat.
But not all our "reporting" is so sinister nor so far from home - though maybe nearly as misguided. "Kill the messenger" came to his mind, perhaps, when Press-Tribune political reporter Sam Lang accused this writer of "attacking" (his word) him (Lang) "... for bearing what he apparently considered to be bad news."
This may be Lang's idea of humor. If it were not so absurd I'd know it was humor. I did not accuse Lang of "bearing bad news." I accused him of manufacturing it. I do not pretend to know whether his intentions were excessively liberal or just wrong-headed, but they did tend to be unkind. Now, Sam Lang is not an unkind person. He just tends to misunderstand non-liberals, I guess.
However, it is interesting, to observe that when he and other liberals in the media merely "misreport," and believe me it's mighty easy to do even unintentionally, they always do so in one direction, i.e., in a direction which tends to make the libs look good and at the political expense of the conservatives.
It's too bad, for instance, that Lang apparently never met any "hyphenated liberals" for he sees fit never to mention one. On the other hand he, like most of his colleagues, seems never to have met an ordinary conservative - merely hyphenated ones. For example, "ultra-conservative, extreme-conservative, extra-conservative, Neanderthal-conservative, responsible-conservative, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Let me hasten to add I think Lang's slant is not particularly malicious compared to many of his more ideologically motivated colleagues. In fact, his may be merely a special sort of language problem caused by his faulty "gauge" for labeling people. Maybe we should call it "Lang-guage."
We could always say it was actually caused by a high-blown, if not altogether reliable, "Statesman-like" bias. (Note: the upper-case "S" on Statesman refers to the Boise newspaper of that name which has a reputation for NOT giving the conservative point(s) of view "equal time".)
Picking Leaders Who 'Get the Message'
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
July 13, 1986
Not long after it became official U.S. foreign policy to oppose Nicaragua's anti-communist leader Somoza, then to install in his place the pro-communist Sandanistas, this writer began begging and pleading with the powers-that-be for our side to "push" capitalism, for a change.
What do I mean by "push capitalism?" Easy. I mean push ideas of individualism as opposed to collectivism. How long has it been since you heard tell of America's Department of State pushing the ideas of the free market, private individual ownership and extremely limited government? Too often, U.S. government officials sell guns and armaments or give them to the rebels only after the idea-battle has long been lost.
The case of Nicaragua is all too familiar, too typical and all too sad. At risk of sounding too simplistic, we supported Samoza's brand of statism almost to the total exclusion of capitalism and free enterprise, suggesting instead compromise and "negotiation." In the meantime, the communists, ever-present and ever-mindful of just exactly what they believe in, i.e., Communism, drive relentlessly toward their openly stated goal of world domination.
As an aside, isn't it interesting how dull and apologetic U.S. officials are when referring to our system (capitalism), which has raised the standard of living of more people than any other in the history of the entire world? Still, it's little wonder, since its proponents are treated with such hate and disrespect on most U.S. campuses, from whence come most all of our "foggy bottom" diplomats for our so-called foreign policy department.
But back to Nicaragua. I said to one of our country's top supporters of the Reagan effort to help Nicaragua's anti-communist Contras, "Why do you fellows go down there anyway?" The reply was: "We're trying to get the commies out of there." I said, "Balderdash! You guys can't even get them out of Washington, D.C. How do you expect to do any better in Nicaragua?"
And so it goes - until relatively recently anyway. Comes now an idea. Not a new one exactly, but for a change it is in a direction of capitalism. At least it's so much better than merely shipping guns, etc., there's no comparison and it's working. It's called Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) an idea that's been around the U.S. for many years, but too little heard about.
Just such an ESOP effort has proved very successful on at least one huge northern Guatemala plantation just a stone's throw from Nicaragua, where for a decade rebels have been attacking both farm workers and owners, destroying crops, buildings and persons. The other owners had almost all abandoned their farms due to the rebel (most everybody accepts as fact these rebels are inspired and directed by Marxist-Leninist agitators) attacks. So when owners of this particular plantation allocated 40 percent of the stock ownership to their 500 workers, it was really a kind of capitalism on trial.
Although the estate had not shown a profit in 10 years, the first harvest under the plan yielded an increase of more than 100 percent. All this in spite of the lack of such pluses as fertilizer and insecticide.
In March 1985, 120 rebels attacked this Guatemalan estate, but were driven off by 200 armed ESOP workers, leaving several dead on both sides. Robert K. Rauth, Jr. (Reason, Aug./Sept. 1985) notes: "In the wake of this attack, the estate's 300 unarmed worker-owners petitioned the Arenas family (60 percent owners) for additional rifles to defend against future attacks, volunteering to help pay for the guns through a payroll-deduction plan. As one of the plan's founders observed: "There is no greater significance to the concept of defending the free-enterprise system than a worker laying down his life to defend the company in which he is co-owner."
Yet, not only do the Communists decry private ownership for workers, gentle reader, so also do "our" anti-Right-to-Work labor unions of the AFL-CIO. (Ever wonder why?) But the basic idea was all summed up perhaps even better last November by a bureaucrat, of all people. Mark S. Fowler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. In a speech in Paris, (one wonders if he feared the U.S. State Department might overhear if such a speech were to be given in America) he said:
"The marketplace is one important way people have to express what they want with their lives and in their lives. The market is not the alpha and omega of satisfaction. There are some things money can't buy, to be sure. But a vigorous market, one that allows ease (read, freedom) of entry and range of choice, is the start of the stuff of human happiness. And those who would over-regulate it would rob us of the flea market and leave us with the fleas."
Idahoans who give a hoot about Nicaragua, Mexico and Central America becoming another Vietnam should consider whether our liberal Gov. John Evans or conservative U.S. Senator Symms is the more likely to get the above message as our next U.S. senator.
Roses, Raspberries to All
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
July 20, 1986
Today I begin an occasional new feature of sorts which I will call, for lack of a better name, "Roses and Raspberries."
The idea has been around for decades so I make no claim for it being original with me.
One thing that prompted me to start a roses and raspberries feature was something I put on my giant sign recently at the entrance to Caldwell near Bob Nicholes' Phillips 66 station at the end of North 21st Avenue.
My casual pat-on-the-back to a fellow who did Caldwell a nice favor resulted in so many notable nice comments I'm taking the liberty of repeating the billboard's message right here.
If my friends like the roses maybe I'll do it again from time to time. I hope, likewise, that the raspberries will drive "mine enemies" and my errant friends up the wall.
Here's the first "bouquet" of Roses that started it all (on the highway sign): "Welcome to Caldwell, home of Bob Collins of R&B Market. The Air-Streamer's pre-rally was his idea. Thanx Bob."
The Press-Tribune, even, got caught up in the whole affair and did a front page story on a related version. Who said we don't have a hometown newspaper anymore? Maybe roses to them is in order here, but methinks my readers may rather more enjoy this writer's future "raspberries" for the editor, an abundance of which he (Press-Tribune editor) will no doubt so richly deserve, i.e., if he will let me, of course. For example:
Raspberries for Press-Tribune editor Rick Coffman who frequently admonishes me with admitted humor in his own behalf by way of: "What's the use of having power unless you can abuse it?"
Roses for Michael Howard, Press-Tribune columnist, an ordained minister who wrote an unusually perceptive column comparing the media's interesting if opposite fascination with two local men of great zeal. Each holds contrasting (read, nearly opposite and, by the way, religious) persuasions. He compared former columnist the Rev. Nat. Pierce, a very liberal public figure, with former Rep. Bob Forrey, a very conservative public figure.
Howard opined that while both men were exceptionally outspoken, bright and articulate, the media generally gave much better, more credible type treatment to the awfully liberal Pierce.
Perhaps my "roses" are uniquely appropriate for Howard who is also a man of passion, but admittedly a bit more quiet. I say this mainly because he so steadfastly seems to avoid proposing new legislation to (forgive me) "legislate morality." In his business, that's mighty rare.
Raspberries for Rep. Janet Hay and her education zealots who mounted a real (from their government-school point of view) housecleaning in the Canyon County GOP Central Committee. They literally "purged" said committee of all those precinct committeemen (and women) and especially their county leaders who could not be counted on to rubber-stamp whatever the education lobby would be likely to want.
Roses, too, however, to Hay and her political school "SWAT-team." Nampa realtor, businessman and embarrassingly articulate political conservative gadfly, Ken Young, publicly endorsed the attractive, well-spoken and extra socially acceptable Hay. Young was a longtime GOP state committeeman seeking another term. Hay and her team threw him out anyway. Served him right.
Raspberries to Nampa businessman and realtor John Brandt, a long-time hard-rock conservative who also publicly endorsed Hay. Oddly enough, both Brandt and Young claim to be boosters for more non-government school competition with government schools. What a switch! Some boosters!
Raspberries for Caldwell Superintendent Darrell Deide, one of Hay's chief team members. They (Hay and Deide) ran an opposition candidate to every single major conservative incumbent in the entire county - part of a similar crusade statewide. By what circumstance, however, does the teacher's lounge in Deide's Van Buren School happen to be literally plastered with (only) posters of "their" candidates of the above-mentioned education lobby? So much for "balance" in our schools these days.
Roses to Van Buren School, however! That's where I went to vote recently, thereby noticing their one-sided politics. More importantly that's the government school where I attended grades one through five - BEFORE the teachers became so pesky politically.
Sen. John Evans, D-Liberal
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
July 27, 1986
The contest for the Senate between Gov. John Evans and U.S. Sen. Steve Symms is beginning to heat up - and that is good. The so-called reasons around which the race is beginning to heat up are not all the real reasons - and that's bad.
The Spokane Spokesman-Review which circulates to many north Idaho readers quotes Evan's claim that Symms was turning his back on his constituents while he (Evans) was "100 percent Idaho." According to regional editor Doug Clark: "Fibs like those can make your nose grow long." He is thus helping heat up the "real" reasons.
He went on to explain the headline on his story which read, "Gov. Evans' real political roots aren't in Idaho soil" as he wants us to think. Clark went on to explain "Truth is, the governor's convictions aren't any more representative of mainstream Idaho politics than were Walter Mondale's - the man Evans represented as campaign chairman during last year's presidential election. Item: Only one state (Utah) drubbed the Mondale/Ferraro ticket worse than Idaho did." So much for Evans' mainstream.
Idaho political watchers tend to know what most voters do not, namely, that Evans hired Kathi Rogers to run his Senate campaign. Rogers is an out-of-state resident of New Hampshire whose cool "45,000 or so" salary as estimated by the Manchester Union-Leader follows her employment as deputy director for Mondale in 1984. She also worked for Jimmy Carter in both 1976 and 1980, so one can see already the hand of the eastern liberal establishment on Evans' shoulder - and in his future?
While one suspicious political advisory service in Washington, D.C., describes Evans as "pretty conservative" the facts suggest otherwise. It is well-known, for example, the money for Evans' past and present ventures into politics is largely dependent on out-of-state labor unions, hence it is no surprise he has done his best to deliver their favors - which are hardly conservative.
Further, Idaho has what is called the Little Davis-Bacon Act which inflates hourly wages on state-funded public works projects in accordance with numbers furnished by the union. This not only unnecessarily raises the cost to Idaho taxpayers, it tends to favor out-of-state competition against Idaho's in-state contractors who are not only qualified but eager to work and compete for the same projects. Evans twice vetoed attempts by the Idaho Legislature to repeal this absurd Little Davis-Bacon Act.
Evans "shined the boots" of the out-of-state labor union bosses two more times when he vetoed the right-to-work law proposed to outlaw compulsory unionism. This last session of the Legislature, however, passed it over Evans' veto with a two-thirds majority. Again, so much for Evans' "100 percent Idaho" mainstream.
The Democrat governor's interest lay elsewhere in another case as readers of this column well know when by 71 percent of the vote the Idaho steelworkers at the Bunker Hill mine asked to go back to work with a cut in pay. Editor Clark notes: "... the governor incredibly supported the Pittsburgh-based Steelworkers' hierarchy" and the mine stayed closed. It is still closed today, says Clark, and "Sunshine (law) reports show the Steelworkers' (out-of-state union) were good for $4,500 in the governor's 1978 and 1982 campaigns."
But Evans' concern for more jobs for Idahoans is no doubt sincere. In fact he (Evans) journeyed at least once to California "... in an attempt to woo industry" for jobs for Idaho workers. Yet one remembers, darkly, Evans getting at least one bit of bad publicity when he got caught spending $89,000 with Arizona firms to print his "Moving Idaho Ahead" campaign brochures, bumper stickers, etc. Egad!
However indebted we are to Clark for these reminders of just how Evans is tied almost hand and foot to the out-of-state eastern liberal political establishment, I'd say he saved the best until last. Best partly because it comes from Homedale's Owyhee Chronicle (now the Avalanche) about Evans' goof of taking his business out of state.
"We were disappointed, if not disgusted, to learn this week from the Idaho Young Republican Federation that Gov. John Evans is supporting jobs in Arizona in his effort to convince Idahoans he is for Idaho and its people."
But the best part, in the opinion of Spokane's Clark, was: "... that Arizona - and arch-conservative Barry Goldwater's stomping-grounds - was a right-to-work state. That's what I call 100 percent hypocrisy."
That's what I call 100 percent deserving of my "roses" for Doug Clark (formerly editor of Coeur d'Alene's newspaper) and "raspberries" for John Evans. But don't let us hold our conservative breaths because the eastern liberal press has yet to zero in on Symms.
And zero in they most certainly will, too, for he (Symms) is not tied to the left-wing eastern establishment who tend to stick together like fleas, especially when they are "feeding."
George Washington Would Die
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
August 3, 1986
It is little short of a fantastic miracle how insightful were America's founding fathers. As in the case of our paternal fathers many of us wonder from time to time just why we didn't listen more carefully to the advice they tried to give us. We should go back even now, though, and re-study the founder's common sense - before it's too late.
Gen. George Washington provided one of the greatest of these legacies to the American people in his farewell address in 1796. He advocated a foreign policy based on free commercial relations with all countries to benefit the American economy through international trade. He believed prosperity was the strongest defense.
Even further, one wonders what the great general would think if he were to come back today and find how America has come to not only not avoid "entangling alliances" with foreign countries, against which he warned us, but he'd find to his dismay that his successors seem hell-bent to actually reward our enemies and penalize our friends - in case after case.
For example, we traded a good guy and friend Chiang Kai-Shek for Mao Tse-Tung, one of the truly great butchers of all time; we traded Cuba's bad guy Batista for the communist's Castro; we traded the bad guy shah of Iran for the preacher-butcher Ayatollah Khomeini.
I almost forgot the parade of good guy African black leaders such as Moshe Tshombi and, sometime later, but just as insanely, we traded our friend Ian Smith of Rhodesia for the present Marxist comrade Robert Mugabe, and the list goes on and on.
Comes now South Africa which has an admittedly super-lousy oppressive system called apartheid and one which almost everyone in that strife-torn country (thanks to communist-inspired agitators) wants to get rid of. But there is about where the American public's leaders and media moguls cease to use any common sense perception at all.
Take the case of the minerals so vast and so richly deposited in Rhodesia and South Africa, the prospective shortage of which is far worse with respect to the health of America's industrial might than is any possible shortage of oil. Chromium is available from only one (guess which) country other than Rhodesia or South Africa. Yep, Soviet Russia, and we're utterly dependent on stainless steel which takes chromium for its manufacture.
Take platinum from South Africa or take it from the Soviet Union because if we do not take it (or buy it) from them we must steal it from the communists and must is the word because platinum, my friends, is the one single ingredient without which refining of crude oil is not even possible. And the U.S. is doing its dangdest to push that country into the hands of the Marxists just as we did to Rhodesia.
Why? Some say those nasty whites in South Africa treat the blacks in a bad, bad way. They violate human rights. Well, they do and they did, but do you see any blacks trying to escape out of South Africa? Not even whites or blacks in the rest of Africa enjoy the civil rights that South African blacks enjoy and it was improving. Indeed many blacks from other countries would love to "escape" into South Africa.
What does the American news media think of South African religious leaders? Well we can't say, because the only one they seem to know and are willing to let us hear and see here in the U.S. is the Marxist-leaning Bishop Tutu. Although there are popular religious leaders there who speak excellent English and who represent far more black people than Tutu, our U.S. media seem not at all interested.
Until only recently they have not treated us to hear and see even the black tribal leaders who represent far, far more numbers of South Africans than does the Marxist African National Congress (ANC).
Many U.S. liberals scream like mashed cats at American companies who have done great deeds for both the common blacks and uncommon blacks by doing business in that country - for a profit and helping our trade deficit, too, yet our political jackasses, including U.S. Sen. Robert Dole recently in Boise stumping for Sen. Steve Symms, push for "disinvestment." Never mind that that will hurt the poor South African black most of all, but us as well.
If these politicians on the stump to get elected president of the U.S. insist on disinvestment in South Africa, why not disinvest also with the Soviet Union and Red China? These countries (each of whose discrimination, by the way, makes South Africa's look like a Southern Baptist Sunday school picnic) participate in and promote slave labor. South Africa does not.
Please take note of this, Steve Symms, my friend and candidate for the U.S. Senate. You might try to enlighten our friend Bob Dole who seems as yet unwilling to denounce at all the Soviet's and Red China's long standing "apartheid" - not to mention call for trade sanctions against them.
Bob Dole may very well be a pragmatic and uncommon guy, but George Washington's common sense he ain't got.
Distinguishing between Good, Bad
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
August 10, 1986
So pervasive has become the modern liberal's rebuke, "don't be negative," that we are fast becoming afraid even to distinguish between good and bad. This is unfortunate for another reason, too. It has tended to lead us into a kind of moral morass of nihilism where nobody believes in anything at all. Even the subject of right and wrong seems to get short shrift.
One need not be a mental giant to see how this leads, or should lead, to a discussion of morals and moral values and where they're headed. Now then, stay tuned my friends because the subject need not put you to sleep. Indeed, it had better not because if you care about maintaining a free society, you had best consider, pragmatically, how much higher food and clothing prices will be if the stores are forced to keep a crew of full-time clerk-policemen merely to stop the shoplifters. Merchandising as we know it today is largely dependent on a reasonably moral citizenry that also respects private ownership of goods and then will pay its bills. Otherwise, costs will inevitably double and redouble. In fact, so serious has shoplifting become that store owners report that it is fast becoming a major cost of doing business.
Morals then tend to suggest the subject of churches and religion. While it is true that religion may not be the only basis for morality, it is certainly way ahead of whatever is in second place today. Furthermore, it rather tends to establish a sense of communion between people who have chosen to live among one another, near enough to need a healthy respect for our neighbor and his justly acquired property.
This little over-simple scenario accounts, in large part at least, for today's hyped-up sense of a search for moral values by which we can or should manage our commonly held ideas and behavior. Perhaps the key term here is "commonly held." Most statists today believe that majority-rule is the lock of truth that must be opened and closed only by at least 51 percent of the "pee-pull." They determine truth by counting noses, then promote it afterward with the government's billy-club.
Many refer to it as something called democracy. Others see it as almost utopian, but it's being done mostly by the same group-think mentality that has revived the old church hymnal ruckus that came up recently in the Methodist Church. They want to knock out from their hymnal such old-time favorites as Onward Christian Soldiers and Battle Hymn of the Republic. (The latter is another word they don't like, believe it or not.)
Church songs and traditional attitudes do indeed influence people's sentiments and assumptions; i.e., their moral values. Maybe you think it is silly, but it is not only the Methodists who are into watering down the old-time lyrics, the Presbyterians already have published an "alternative" song. It starts out: "Onward Christian people, marching into life."
(Wow!) And a minister friend said to me, "It's just as good as the old one, Ralph." Egad!
William Murchison, associate editor of The Dallas Morning News put the Methodist flap ever so well in The Washington Times last week: "The present point is that Christian pacifism, relatively strong in the 20th century, would seem to have got its hooks deeply into theologians and pastors, Catholics and Protestants alike. There is resistance (now) at the hierarchical level, anyway - not just to war but warlike language, which is deemed to encourage warlike thoughts.
"... It is the calling of Christians to work and pray for peace, not war. (But) I am always slightly puzzled when I hear this. Yes, of course, that is the calling of Christians. And may I inquire how that calling detracts from the duty of keeping one's powder dry in the event war comes anyway?"
The Methodists and Presbyterians to the contrary notwithstanding, The Salvation Army does not suffer fools gladly.
Why, bless their "negative" and "warlike" hearts, they are hell-bent for fighting sin and waging a hot war against the devil with lieutenants, captains, Lt.. colonels and even a general in their London headquarters. That general, Albert Osborn, as a matter of fact, himself wrote in The Salvation Army's song book (read, hymnal) something which still holds today:
"... We have sung the simple old truths in the simple old hearty way that God has already blessed so widely to the salvation of souls and the making and training of red hot soldiers."
They even have a great book entitled Soldiers Without Swords. If the bureaucrats and the do-gooders would only read it, they just might find out how to win what President Lyndon B. Johnson started way back when - remember what he called the WAR on poverty?
Waging War for the Right Reason
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
August 17, 1986
In last week's column this writer was leaning a bit on those church people who have some sort of silly urge to remove two "militaristic" hymns from their hymnal. They were Battle Hymn of the Republic and Onward Christian Soldiers, but it is the latter one that I especially want to talk about, partly because it is a long-time favorite of mine and partly because herein may lie an embryo of understanding within which we might better view the decline of the West.
There may be some connection or at least a cross-pollination between religious fashion and education today, particularly among the ideas or philosophies which find such great sympathy on most college campuses. It is also true, to some extent, in non-government schools due to the influence of accreditation, licensing, peer-groupism and other powerful social considerations, but it is mainly in the public school arena that the current scrutiny may lend us some insight.
While the connections are by no means direct nor absolute, one cannot help but sense an interesting pertinence in something that happened not long ago. In April 1983 the National Commission of Excellence in Education issued its now historic report, "A Nation at Risk," in which it said: "The education foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people."
Then it added a comment which must have raised a lot of eyebrows (now, get this!): "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it is we have allowed it to happen to ourselves." What a massive criticism of today's schools!
In other words, our own educators have done to American thinking what only our worst enemy would have done if it could. And the overwhelming percentage of today's liberal ministers and church laymen are graduates of that very same government school system. Doesn't this suggest something?
Well, I'm not exactly sure what it suggests, but as John Dewey, most educators' great hero and socialist leader said in his book, My Pedagogic Creed, "I believe that the image is the great instrument of instruction." Certainly hymns are excellent creations of image, especially popular hymns.
And who can contradict that today's massive educational expenditures, massive enrollment and massive constituency are not in the business of creating images and destroying what they see as traditional? It's something to think about, especially when one sees both prayer in schools and the three R's going out of fashion.
But the best perspective of all, no doubt, on the silly criticism of Onward Christian Soldiers was done by Charles Welborn Jr. and in their letter to the editor (Washington Times, Aug. 1, 1986). "The lyricist Sabine Baring Gould aptly described the call of the Christian disciple. His hymn is like the parable of Jesus who used words relating to the physical realm to explain a spiritual reality. The words of the first stanza of the hymn do not say marching off to war, but 'marching as to war,' the third stanza reads 'like a mighty army,' not a mighty army.
"When the song refers to soldiers they are Christian Soldiers. A Christian soldier has a much different purpose and mission than an ordinary soldier. The enemy is not one of physical stature but is instead of the spiritual realm. The enemy is not the foe of foreign wars. The enemy is the devil, Satan, and all of his troops.
"The war referred to in this hymn is one that is much more deadly because it concerns the loss of souls rather than bodies. This song deals with the calls to Christians to arm themselves with the word of God in preparation for spiritual warfare with the devil.
"Pacifism has no place in spiritual warfare."
And speaking of soldiers, that has to be one of the best commentaries I ever saw on the Onward Christian Soldiers hymn controversy, a kind of imagery, if you please, except perhaps the Salvation Army's style of "war."
What a great bunch of soldiers they are. What a crusade they are on. What a wonderful dedication toward God and their fellow man, toward peace on Earth and away from war. No wonder everybody loves them and their military style image. Their military-type uniform, furthermore and finally, sort of puts the lie to the hymn's critics' charge, i.e., the negative image of righteous militarism. So does the Salvation Army's major magazine publication, The War Cry.
Therefore, there is hope, my friends. There is also a lot of educating to do - about religion. Onward Christian letter-writers!
Trojan Horse or a Trojan Donkey?
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
August 24, 1986
Is Lt. Gov. David Leroy a real thoroughbred on the Republican racetrack? Or is this tall, good looking, bright-eyed, vigorous and intelligent young man, who is probably the most well-spoken GOPer in Idaho politics today, a conservative's "Trojan horse?"
Leroy has been educating himself for running for governor of Idaho ever since he was in the eighth grade. He may very well be the most qualified man ever to run in the state for its political leader either because of, or in spite of, the fact that he is a practicing lawyer who has served as a prosecuting attorney, attorney general of Idaho and now lieutenant governor of Idaho. He just could become governor.
Among seasoned political watchers in the state, however, almost nobody thought he had a Chinaman's chance against Cecil Andrus, the Democrat they remember as the most popular liberal politician ever to run in Idaho politics. Indeed, gloom and doom had settled over the hot-shot politicos and all but the "I'd vote for a yellow dog just so he's a Republican" stereotypes.
There were also those who said, "Leroy could conceivably have a chance if the popular and bon-vivant businessman Butch Otter gets the GOP nomination to be Leroy's running mate as lieutenant governor." Well, he did, and it looked for a time until after the primary (when for some goofy reason Leroy said, "the party has cleansed itself") that more and more folks were willing to speculate that maybe, just maybe, Leroy could pull it off - with a bit of luck.
But last week's local news TV showed Leroy saying he was "surprised" that the Idaho Education Association (IEA) announced their support for Andrus. Nobody but the lieutenant governor expected the left-wing IEA to endorse anybody but Andrus.
Now then, Leroy is not politically dumb, but if he keeps sounding that way many will get to thinking he is actually dumb, or worse yet - a dupe, i.e., there is the same chance of the teachers' labor union (IEA) abandoning Andrus as the Catholics abandoning the pope. Surprise? My foot!
Here is some fabulously revealing if not surprising documentation: In a May 22, 1986, letter marked "confidential," the IEA's executive director, Don Rollie, wrote to their PAC's board of directors: "You have probably heard by this time that David Leroy's campaign disclosure report lists a $2,000 contribution from the National Education Association (NEA).
"Here's how that happened: In February the (Republican) Idaho Lincoln Day (Banquet) Committee brought Vice President George Bush to Boise to be their speaker at the annual Lincoln Day dinner. Just prior to the dinner, there was a $250 per ticket private reception at the home of Sen. James Risch. We used $2,000 of soft NEA-PAC money to purchase eight tickets to that reception, and eight of our people went. The tickets indicated that the money would be split between the Republican Party and Lt. Gov. Leroy. Evidently the party allocated all of the money to Leroy.
"When asked about it by the media or by members, that is our response. It is factual and unadorned. Some of our political friends, however, were upset. To them we are also explaining that the reporting of a $2,000 contribution from NEA by Leroy is indeed a political advantage to us. (They must know that Leroy is required by law to report it.)
"It places Republican candidates who would like to beat up on the NEA in an uncomfortable position (which is exactly why the NEA does it), and while there may be some temporary discomforture on the part of Cecil Andrus and his campaign staff, we have plenty of time between now and the general election to make abundantly clear to our members and the general public, that Mr. Andrus is our endorsed candidate. It's also clear that Andrus' campaign will very likely receive far in excess of $2,000 from the IEA-PAC. (A remarkably honest admission, wouldn't you say?)
"Hope this answers some questions that may come your way regarding this report. Signed DLR" (for Don Rollie).
Now then, the above last line surely suggests to many that IEA members can be expected to wonder what business the leftist breadmakers such as the NEA would have giving that kind of dough to middle-of-the-road mugwumps like Leroy. Well, it's called political action and, as always, money is how super-rich unions such as the NEA attempt to buy politicians.
Aside from Leroy's almost perpetual and hands-on "schooling" for politics, his education has just now achieved Ph.D. status. In politics as in academics the initials tend to stand for pile it higher and deeper. And the post-graduate degree in politics teaches that an honest benefactor (e.g., IEA), much like an honest politician, when bought, doesn't always stay bought.
This is true in spades, my friends, especially when a candidate thinks as most all Boise politicians do, namely, that conservatives must vote for him because they virtually have nowhere else to go. He may be right, too, but one supposes also that what appeared to be a thoroughbred just could turn out to be a Trojan donkey.
I'm Not Anti-Education, Anti-Teachers
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
August 31, 1986
A school official asked the other day, "Ralph, why are you seen as against education, or more pointedly, anti-teacher?"
While I realize that this is a common misperception in some circles, it does hurt a little. As a lifelong student and one who is still learning, I believe in the value of education. A mind, really, is a terrible thing to waste.
It is true that sometimes I don't agree with what is being included in "an education," but then, there is some debate about that among professional educators or so I've been told. Unfortunately the gnomes of the guild tolerate little open dissent on the matter.
Now, about being anti-teacher, once again I call foul. I have had teachers all my life - still do - and many if not most of them have fond places in my memories. Beginning with my early school days at Van Buren in Caldwell to the present, I have found my teachers to be concerned with the pursuit of knowledge and dedicated to their students.
I remember Miss Brummett in the first grade, Mrs. Miller in the second and Mrs. Ruark in all the grades. She was principal at Van Buren and appeared almost everywhere at once, sometimes when you least expected her, especially if you were up to some mischief. A wonderful lady whom I learned to love only some years later because she was such a strict disciplinarian.
There were others at Lincoln School where the old Sears building is now. Tom Turner there, who made history relevant even to me, alongside perhaps the greatest teacher of English who ever lived - Mrs. Christopher. She could diagram a complex sentence on the blackboard and never once take her eyes off us so-called "individualists" in the back row. A truly wonderful teacher.
There were other wonderful ones, too many to recount here. No, gentle reader, I am not anti-teacher. In fact, I don't understand why there are no $100,000-a-year teachers. Well, I really do, too.
It's because there is no free market in the school system, but that itself is another story.
What I'm really concerned about in addition to content, of course, is the delivery system in education. The virtual monopoly the state has on the educational process and the stifling effect that has on teachers' opportunities is terrible. They cannot be rewarded on the basis of merit and the damage it is doing and is capable of doing to individual freedom of choice makes me seem pro-teacher in spades.
Whenever I make a comment like this it is immediately labeled anti-education or anti-teacher. You see, it is so very much easier to defend education or teachers than it is to defend a state (read government) monopoly in anything, be it education, postal service, liquor stores, etc., etc.
Some issues I would like to see discussed without the anti-education, anti-teacher smoke screen (that's just what is is, you know) would include the following: (1) Is it in the best interest of freedom to have a state monopoly in education or nationally mandated curriculum? (2) Why can't high quality teachers demand and receive payment based on their merit as do other professionals in the service business? (3) What are the lines of responsibility for children, i.e., when are they the responsibility of the state? (4) Why is it so much easier for a "quack" of a lawyer to go broke than it is for a "quack" of a teacher? (5) Since the Supreme Court's recent, if inquisitorial, decision that its jurisdiction even extends into individual's bedrooms we should be discussing just how long it will be before people must secure a license to breed.
No, I don't blame teachers; they have virtually no place else to go to practice their craft and no place else to go but into the streets to picket and strike for a raise in pay.
I don't blame parents either, altogether. Given the fact they are forced into a scheme of double-taxation and in some cases indeed even a real threat of jail if they choose the economically more expensive route of a private church school. Not a reasonable freedom of choice.
What I don't understand is why we can't discuss alternatives openly and why these same two groups (teachers and parents) are so ready to defend the very system that denies them freedom of choice and economic opportunity.
As you can see my friends, this subject can hardly be treated here in the space of one short column, but let me suggest a reason more parents may hesitate to speak out. It may be that they don't want to be labeled "anti-teacher" or "anti-education" - as Smeed gets labeled.
Maybe it is not unlike how the famous, if outspoken, U.S. Undersecretary of State George Ball (now retired) explains the power of name-calling as done by the super-powerful American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby in Washington, D.C.
Says Ball: "They've got one great thing going for them. Most people are terribly concerned not to be accused of being anti-Semitic, and the lobby so often equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. They keep pounding away at that theme, and people are deterred from speaking out."
But not Ball, a great Democrat and now at 74 - a great teacher.
Trust Me - I Was Ahead of My Time
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
September 7, 1986
Last week Caldwell was treated to a visit from the highest officer of education in America, U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett. For this we have to thank Lincoln Elementary School which won a national award for excellence. Bennett personally made the presentation.
Some quick thinking on the part of Superintendent Darrell Deide, of course, took advantage of Bennett's appearance in Boise and hence the Caldwell school was afforded the rare prestige of having its award presented by the high priest of government education. The honor is one of only five such awards in Idaho during the four years the recognition has been in existence and furthermore two of those have been to a Caldwell school. Jefferson Junior High got the award last year. Hats off to Caldwell schoolers.
Educators are fairly cognizant of a blue-ribbon report which was commissioned by another U.S. secretary of education three or four years ago. It was to evaluate the quality of education in America. It was entitled "A Nation At Risk" and afterward its commissioners revealed in a rather unique and straightforward statement that education in America had degenerated to such an all-time low that: "If a hostile foreign power had perpetrated this condition upon our country's schools it would likely be viewed as an act of war." Caldwell may be an exception.
Pretty scary words, though, don't you agree? Since that time much rhetoric has been exchanged between interested parties, but it all brings to mind an essay published way back in 1969 by now U.S. Sen. Steve Symms, Bob Smith and myself in a publication was called The Idaho Compass.
If you will bear in mind when it was written you may find some seminal if not rather foretelling observations made right here at home 15 years ahead of "A Nation At Risk." Ours was entitled: "Our Governor and Idaho Education" and I hope my readers will forgive me if reprinting it herein below sounds a bit presumptuous. However, I have since changed my mind and I assume Symms has, too, on a couple of points. In any event, I think you'll agree it was clearly analytic and somewhat prophetic. Here it is:
'For many years Americans have laughed at the people of India because of their belief in (their) 'sacred cow." Maybe it's time we stopped laughing and take a hard look at one of our own 'sacred cows' - higher education. Americans seldom do things half-way, and when it comes to higher education we find no exception. We believe that a little education is good. That more education is better, and a lot is best of all.
"Our blind faith in the educational system has led us to the ultimate conclusion that everybody ought to go to college and receive the finest that money can buy. And so every year the cost keeps climbing higher and higher. Eventually we can hope to reach the point when everyone will stay in college all their life and no one will need to work at all.
"It's high time we took a long look at what we are doing with all this money and effort. (Today, 1986, government schools take 75 percent of the state's entire budget.) Anyone who questions the 'educational establishment,' is immediately presumed to be either ignorant or against progress. We (The Idaho Compass) maintain that our whole educational system has become retrogressive and that Gov. Don Samuelson asked exactly the right question when he called for a complete evaluation of our universities.
"The need for an audit is not simply to see whether any money is being stolen. This is not the point. We believe that the universities are spending all the money they say they are spending. The real question is whether or not our students and our society are getting the value which is deserved for the money expended. We agree with our governor that both our students and our society are being short-changed by the education myth.
"College is not the only door to success. Many of our finest civic and business leaders have never attended a college.
Furthermore, many of our most vital and important jobs do not require college, but do require years of on-the-job training.
"For many people who possess technical talents, the four years spent in a university are a serious waste of valuable time which might have been much more productively spent learning a technical vocation. Make no mistake. Many of our talented young people are actually having their lives ruined by being channeled into a lifetime of white-collar mediocrity by our universities."
Higher Education Not Always Better
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
September 14, 1986
Last week you may remember we rehearsed a bit about the bipartisan, blue-ribbon presidential commission report on the quality of education in America. It was entitled "A Nation At Risk" and brought to light a number of questions suggesting U.S. education had, generally speaking, become a sad, if sanctimonious, Sacred Cow. Some fundamental changes seemed long, long overdue.
Interestingly enough three Idahoans, Steve Symms, Bob Smith and myself, had written something strikingly similar to "A Nation At Risk" 14 years before in the publication called The Idaho Compass. What follows is the second installment. Last week was the first of that 1969 narrative. You may be surprised how timely it still is.
"Many of them (our talented young students) are actually learning attitudes and habits which are detrimental to them and our society, and they would be much happier, and more valuable to our society by learning a highly specialized skill in industry.
"Of course there are many students who benefit from a university education. There are numerous tasks in our society that require the type of training which is offered by our universities, but the idea that everyone ought to go to college is not only a myth but is also a dangerous misunderstanding of the way in which our civilization operates. Attending a university is not the only way to get an education.
"Even the most elementary reflection will make a person realize that some of the best-educated people we know never attended a university, and some of the least informed have a college degree. Education today is an on-going process of the whole society. The person who reads and thinks and works with new ideas will in a very short space of time catch up and pass the man who spends four years in the Ivory Halls and then stops learning.
"In fact, many people who have college degrees are so self-assured by the fact of their graduation that they no longer feel the need to read or learn, and thus they become the most backward people of all.
"In our rapidly changing world it is no longer possible to learn a so-called body of knowledge which will last a lifetime.
Much of what is taught in our best university courses is obsolete in a short while. But in addition, some of the people who teach in our universities are so out of touch with the world that what they are teaching now is already obsolete.
"One of the reasons for student riots in this country (remember, this was written in 1969) is because the students in many classes are being forced to learn things which even they recognize as being already false. Maybe if you had to sit in a classroom for an hour every day learning why free enterprise won't work, you would want to riot too.
"Unlimited money does not necessarily produce better education. Perhaps one of the most serious fallacies in the thinking of people these days is that the mere spending of money will always produce the desired result. Of course it takes money to do certain jobs, but it also takes a combination of work, creativity and motivation.
"Anyone who has studied the war on poverty knows that millions were spent which never reached the poor people.
Large amounts went into various kinds of 'administration,' which was not only high-priced but often unrelated to the real problems. The same thing happens in a large university when there is almost no opportunity for the taxpayers to evaluate the program.
"As a university becomes more powerful and receives more money, it usually becomes more interested in prestige and less interested in teaching good classes to its undergraduates. Strangely enough, if the students complain that they are shortchanged, they are blamed for 'student unrest,' but nobody bothers to investigate the quality of instruction - that brought about the 'unrest.'
"It is our conviction that several things need to be done here in Idaho. (1) We need a complete evaluation of our university programs as our governor has suggested. (2) Tuition at our tax supported institutions of higher education should be raised to a realistic level. (3) The states should establish a student loan fund so that student who does not have the money to pay the higher tuition could borrow at a low rate of interest and pay it back over a long period of time. (4) The ratio of state money spent for education should be adjusted so that proportionately more will go for primary and secondary education and proportionately less for higher education.
"Some of the best colleges in the U.S. are privately owned and operated. These colleges have been founded by churches, individuals and foundations. Yet the present system of state and federal funding of our universities is actually destroying the private colleges."
Interestingly, though in the best collectivism tradition, the latter group, all but starving to death for non-government funds, i.e., to maintain their so-called "independent" status, steadfastly refuse to even raise a finger in open protest against their excessively tax-subsidized competition.
Punching Holes in a Sacred Cow
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
September 21, 1986
This column is the final o f a three-part series on education in Idaho, especially higher education. All this was mostly inspired by former Secretary of Education Terrance Bell and his blue-ribbon commission's report condemning the present disaster in public education.
The present U.S. secretary of Education, William Bennett, was in Caldwell recently and declared pretty much the same sentiments on education's sad state of affairs. He went so far as to even contradict what Idaho State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jerry Evans seems forever to be telling us, i.e., that virtually every problem in schools today could be solved by yet another trainload of government money. Schools get 75 percent of the state's budget already.
In any event, at least some top level attention is finally being brought to bear upon the content of schooling rather than merely upon its form. But it is not the first attempt. Three Idahoans did just that way back in 1969 in a journal called the Idaho Compass published by Steve Symms (now U.S. senator), Bob Smith and myself. It also made many recommendations. What follows is the final one-third of our insightful if not downright prophetic 1969 "report" on Idaho education.
"It is a strange thing indeed that we who believe in the value of the free enterprise system have designed a system of higher education which year by year makes it more difficult for the privately owned system to function.
"Raising the tuition at the tax-supported universities, coupled with a state loan fund, would make it possible for the student to attend the school of his choice - for example (in Idaho) Ricks College, the College of Idaho or Northwest Nazarene College, all excellent schools. Under our present system the parent who wants to send his son or daughter to one of these schools must pay high (today some would say exorbitant) tuition at that school, while still supporting other students who go to the university virtually free of charge.
"Another benefit of higher tuition (at government universities) is that it would cause the student to consider more seriously whether or not he should go to the university. Much of the cost of running a university comes as a result of having to spend a great deal of time with students who are not there to learn, but are there for social and other (non-academic) reasons.
"The free market economy has made the United States of America the greatest nation on Earth today. Let's apply some of this know-how to education in Idaho.
"Our rumor department hears a faint rumble of support for a 'chair of free(private) enterprise' at the College of Idaho. (We're heartened, but not going to hold our breath.)"
So much for a little known but seminal publication which was all but totally ignored by the media back in 1969.
However, one supposes the news people should get some small credit for something closely connected to the Idaho Compass story which they did at that time see as slightly newsworthy. It concerned the then president of the University of Idaho Alumni Association, Steve Symms, and his "freedom of the press."
Symms was one of the most popular presidents of alumni in U of I history, but his name was then currently on the masthead of the Idaho Compass which, as readers of this column will remember, had labeled education a "sacred cow" and furthermore was calling for a chair of capitalism at the U of I. Forget for the moment whether such was or was not a good idea, but consider what Idaho's most high educational institution's alumni was up to, vis-a-vis their outspoken proxy, Symms.
The U of I alumni board of directors formally asked Symms to remove his name from the masthead of the Compass until his term as alumni president was over - get this - because Symms' publication was critical of higher education. This was tantamount, in their alumni conformism, to being an intellectual flasher or, if you please, to academic streaking or maybe downright treason.
Needless to say, Symms refused, explaining such action on his part would be "phony and intellectually dishonest."
Still, no less than alumni board member and classmate Iver J. Longteig, currently a Boise lawyer and recent unsuccessful candidate for district judge (serves him right) said publicly just before they fired Symms: "Steve, as alumni president you must help sell higher education whether it's worth a damn or not." For his unwillingness to be a rubber stamp they actually fired him.
So much for the U of I alumni respect for freedom of expression and capitalism. It doesn't say very much, either, for today's alumni board that they haven't even had the grace to publicly apologize for the indignity they visited upon a classmate who was to become one of their very most distinguished alumni, U.S. Sen. Steve Symms.
This is especially true in light of U of I President Richard Gibb's starting virtually just such a chair at that school a decade later, and I leave it up to my readers whether or not higher education is still a "sacred cow."
Building a Boise Convention Center
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
September 28, 1986
It seems that the tycoons of Boise have finally grown tired of 20 years of political procrastination, study after study and delay after delay. Somewhat like the vultures sitting high on the tree limb they are finally saying, "Patience, hell, I'm going to kill something."
That something in this instance are the opponents of a new convention center in downtown Boise.
In any event, the big tycoons have banded together with the little tycoons to form a group known as Boise Economic Support Team (BEST). Of course, that is a catchy handle that could have been used by just about anyone.
These people all lined up, however, to put a few bucks in the pot, rented some offices, hired some staff in hopes that BEST could prod the dull-witted bureaucracy and the government-galled citizens to action. Could it be that this may indeed prove that when something simply has to get done, free enterprise is the best vehicle with which to do it?
On the face of it and just for the record, we rock-ribbed conservatives did not exactly appreciate their first attempts.
Nonetheless, the moneyed men ran their own studies and analyses which told them that tourism was the best hope of goosing an otherwise stag-flated economy. Touche-Ross and Co. brought in papers guaranteeing 29 major conventions, including 18,000 new well-heeled visitors that they figured would spend $9.1 million per year starting in 1992. All they needed, they opined, was someplace to put all those convention-goers - and their money.
Hotel rooms are no problem. The same Touche-Ross study determined that there are 1,300 suitable rooms in Boise which is more than enough for the 1,000-1,200 people-size trade shows and conventions these folks were looking for.
Estimates to build the required people-barn came to around $7.25 million, not a huge amount, but still more than anyone has so far wanted to step up and plunk down.
Generally speaking, most well-meaning Idaho voters try to come up with some sort of "fair" tax to finance these redevelopment schemes, but, so far at least, the only fair tax is the one the other guy pays. Still, times may be changing a little.
In this case, the BEST people may be trying to change. They are proposing to fund "their" center in Boise with a 4 percent room tax that, to some degree at least, amounts to little more than a user fee.
A true free market would, of course, look at the whole thing with an extremely jaundiced eye, and properly so, but the private ownership package as proposed does carry at least some virtue with it.
The Boise bankers see enough selfish interest in the project to attract their own financier-type safe and selfish interest, hence they are presently about to agree among themselves to put a consortium together to fund the Boise Convention Center.
Still the suspicion lingers, where would the bankers and other "free-enterprise" supporters be without recourse to the government's 4 percent room tax?
You're Asking the Wrong Question
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
October 5, 1986
Our great and god-like leader (and boss - as he's wont to remind us) hath decreed that all his local columnists (there are eight of us) write this week on the same subject.
Rick Coffman, managing editor of the Press-Tribune, has never told us what to write, hence one supposes it is no more than fair we accede to him his whim upon this infrequent occasion.
His topic chosen for all of us is to give our opinion today on Canyon County adding an extra hour to the time allowing to drink booze Monday through Saturday. It is now not legal for tavern keepers to sell alcoholic beverages after 1 a.m. weekdays and as the famous prostitute used to say, "Never on Sunday." Ye old editor wants comment also on the notion of allowing the latter, i.e., Sunday liquor sales.
As you may know, our county commissioners decided to avoid this hot potato by putting the matter on the ballot Nov. 4 and "let the pee-pull decide." This isn't so much passing the buck as many people think.
Voters ask, yea demand, asinine things - many of which fiercely contradict both common sense and many other voters who disagree. This being the case the county leaders are quite within proper, legal and pragmatic guidelines.
Coffman's directive said he didn't want us to "philosophize this thing to death" which is something of a contradiction since counting noses in order to find the truth is about the only alternative. Still, philosophy does tend to intimidate most people so we'll try our hand at fine-tuning legislation for the moralists.
An extra hour extending drinking time from 1 a.m. (as now) to 2 a.m. is tantamount to why beat your wife for an extra hour? Better to ask why beat her at all?
But the latter won't be on the ballot, never mind whether some wives have it coming or not. So do some husbands, especially those who want to drink until 2 a.m., maybe because they're lonesome yet can't stand to go home and face their perhaps unpleasant wife.
In any event, it is legal to drink whiskey only until 1 a.m., but one can drink strychnine, which is much worse, all night long. Yet people should know better.
I agree with Erwin Schwiebert on this one (forgive me). Let's educate everybody: compulsory attendance laws, but this time at the city jail's drunk tank. They put everybody else on one of Schwiebert's myriad of glorious welfare state schemes, e.g., for free cradle-to-grave schooling which he, quite sincerely, I believe, thinks will solve most every social and economic problem known to man.
I jest, of course, but "truth in a jest." In more direct response to Coffman's social question of whether or not to add an extra hour onto the existing "individual right" (to drink) given unto us not by God, but by the state - I say wrong question.
Too often today, it is suggested: "Run to the government (a collectivism responsibility) - except that so many well-meaning folks plead almost daily for the government to take over and control the formerly voluntary institutions of individual responsibility, i.e., church, private schools and family.
I say leave the law the way it is for now. Drink until 1 o'clock in the morning if you must. That's enough. Then let's all of us help Coffman find someone other than government to formulate today's great social questions. Today's interventionists seem to formulate all the "newsworthy" questions thusly: "Find two liberals who disagree."
Let us next time ask why do we have to ask the state at all just why is it any of their damn business what hours we can drink legal poison? The crime, if indeed there be one, must be limited to the initiation of force or violence against others.
Drinking on Sunday? I ask my friend, and now innovative editor, "Just whose danged business is it whether we drink booze on the Presbyterian's day of worship (Sunday) or on the Seventh-day Adventist's day of worship (Saturday)?
What if the Adventists are right? IF so, we could be making it compulsory to offend the Lord himself on his very own day of worship. And it is suggested we decide such a colossal question by one-man one-vote? Egad!
With due respect to my editor's admonition (not to over-philosophize) and the plethora of preachers puzzled over politics, I submit my good friend Albert Jay Nock's ever-so-insightful suggestion as my own opinion for the sincerely concerned moralists:
"My notion is that it is not so important at the moment to try to make people take up with this, that, or the other view- as it is to establish the questions that must be considered before any competent view can be formulated. These questions are sunk now in an immense depth of ignorance, and until they are brought up and at least clearly presented, I don't believe the moralist has any chance at all."
Signs vs. Substance: 'Tis the Season
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
October 12, 1986
Have you been noticing the yard signs of the politicians lately? Nov. 4 is election day and the "great unwashed" will soon be headed for the voting booth but for what and just who they are not sure. They hear the crusades calling upon them to get out and vote - but they're not sure why.
Well, the politicians and their pragmatism consultants know this, of course, so they advise lots of gimmicks, balloons, caps, hats, bumper stickers and a host of other superficial stuff mostly designed to build something called name-familiarity. You know what that is.
The voters are confused, concerned and caught in between the candidates with a toothy smile and vague never-ending promises. Then there are other real "positive" techniques, on the one hand, and other more realistic office-seekers who try to tell it like it is with the too often unfortunate result of sounding negative.
The latter frequently turn off most voters hence the political professionals suggest that their clients say as little as possible and depend more on literature, pictures, red-white-and-blue bunting and, you guessed it - yard signs.
It is not only that yard signs tell folks how to spell Andrus, Leroy or Symms but they tend to tell people where and toward whom the so-called majority is headed. For some strange reason, depending on who works the hardest, has the most volunteer workers or has the most money to spend to have the work done, they are able to create the appearance of a great tide or a parade of public opinion in favor of the most popular (whatever slim virtue there may be therein) candidate.
Since most voters are confused, intellectually lazy or downright dull such a method as yard signs, bumper stickers, etc., are often seen to be successful. Certainly they are successful if the media who almost always favor one group of candidates over another do not see fit to give much attention or much newsworthiness to certain ideas.
Still one can see some helpful substance of sorts in yard signs, especially in the yards of those folks who put up several candidates' signs all in a bunch. Even the referendum signs such as right-to-work (RTW) tell a story in addition to how to spell "yes" and "no."
What do they tell us? Well, almost always the more socialistic (read, liberal) type candidate's such as Andrus, Evans, LaRocco, etc., are in the same yards as the anti-freedom-to-work signs asking voters to vote "No on 1."
It is an interesting aside to note how the above labor union mentality motivates their side to print the picture of the Statue of Liberty alongside of their anti-liberty message to "vote no." A curious contradiction at best.
Contrarily, the yard signs of Symms, Leroy, Risch, etc., mostly anti-socialist type candidates, tend to get their yard signs posted in people's yards who also have "Vote Yes on 1." They are the pro-RTW folks who want us to vote yes on Referendum 1 to keep the law the Legislature passed last session over the veto of Gov. Evans. He is a red-hot labor union supporter whose major multi-million dollar source of funds comes from Eastern establishment unions.
There are, of course, other ideas and tendencies, e.g., socialistic, free-market, private or free enterprise, etc., one can glean from merely watching whose yard signs are up alongside of whose. There are certainly some exceptions, but the generality is usually a good one - often as good or better than what you read in the paper or see on their TV ads because there is some tendency for the press to say what the politicians actually say instead of what they mean or mean to cover-up. In this regard the media sometimes gets blamed for some things that are not altogether their fault.
But the worst political lie I've seen lately has to be Gov. Evans' TV ads and radio attempting to blame his opponent, U.S. Sen. Steve Symms, for the low price of farm commodities, especially wheat. Evans' political tribe has for years begged Washington, D.C., for farm subsidies. Symms has, generally speaking, opposed government's farm price manipulation - including the virtual giveaways to our enemies of the inevitable farm (e.g., wheat) surpluses. There, gentle readers, is a real choice between at least two major candidates' policies.
There are other differences, of course, not all of them ideal. But to allege the farm crises are the fault of a Symms who "doesn't care" about farmers (Evans claims he cares more) is much the same as a ridiculous claim that the Mormon prophet Ezra Taft Benson "doesn't care" about farmers either.
When Benson was secretary of agriculture under President Dwight Eisenhower he did his darndest to pursue almost the very same market-oriented, free enterprise policies for agriculture as Symms is doing today.
Since truth in labeling does not have to apply to Evans' yard signs for farmers they could as well read: "Vote Evans, he'll show you how the government can run water up hill."
He might try, too, but guess who'd pay the bill.
Grape-Gate and Good Sense
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
October 19, 1986
If my "roses and raspberries" column was ever called for, it is called for these days - not only because bad guys are doing bad things, which tends to be the media's main meat, but some good things have happened, too. Here are some you may enjoy.
Roses to Professor James M. Buchanan, general director of the world-famous Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. When I visited the great libertarian in his office two or three years ago, some mutual friends opined to me that many scholars thought Buchanan to be next in line for a Nobel Prize in economics.
Well, last week he got the big award for his work, part of which was the idea that there exists a kind of marketplace of incentives and disincentives among politicians and bureaucrats. The latter includes both risk and reward and, of course, money. But Buchanan articulates the obvious in a way even liberals cannot ignore. He is thus the fourth "libertarian" economist to receive the Nobel honor since 1974, following F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman and George Stigler. Soon, the liberal statist professors' ploy of name-calling (i.e., conservative crackpots and jerks) will be seen for what it really is - sour grapes.
Raspberries for the Idahoans Against Deception. This is the labor-union bunch that is out to defeat the freedom to get and hold a job without having to join or pay dues to a union. In my more than 35 years of intense political watching and behind-the-scenes participating, I have never seen such blatant half-truths (worse than lies) being used to distort an otherwise clearly understandable issue: the freedom to choose. Compulsory unionism is just that - compulsory. Oh yes, you don't have to join the union in the closed shop in order to get a job, but you do have to join or pay dues within 30 days in order to keep that job.
Raspberries to Boise State University economics professor Charles Skoro to whom the out-of-state labor bosses turned to give respectability to their so-called legal "arrangement" described by Skoro in his current, misleading TV ads favoring what amounts to compulsory unionism. The best economics professor I ever had, the late, great Benjamin Rogge said, "Ralph, it's easier for a college professor to bilk his customers than it is for a used-car salesman to bilk his."
An added raspberry to Skoro's colleagues in the BSU and University of Idaho economics departments who keep their silence amidst such technical bastardization of economic semantics and denial of the freedom to choose as Skoro and others are trying to peddle.
Roses for Ste. Chapelle winery of Sunny Slope, Caldwell, and the great old pioneer family of conservative U.S. Sen. Steve Symms, all of whom have been caught up in the sensationalism of election-time criticism and innuendo. It concerns alleged labeling or mislabeling of some grapes grown in nearby Washington. (The wine itself was actually manufactured, fermented and aged here in Idaho.) About the only ones who gained from the ultra-silly "Grape-gate" were the federal bureaucrats whose claimed expertise has never ever led them to even lay a brick or grow a blade of grass. What a great thing that America has entrepreneurs like the Symms, who produce jobs for lots of wonderful workers.
Raspberries, however, to those same Symms winemakers. They have received some really rotten editorials lately, especially one ever in poor taste (no pun) from a former political reporter and now editor of the edit page of a large Idaho daily paper, who literally loved the liberal politics of the late U.S. Sen. Frank Church. Church was defeated by Steve Symms in 1980. Perhaps the best editorial, certainly the cleverest seen by this observer, was one appearing in the Ontario, Argus Observer headlined "Tempest in a Wine Bottle." The Argus editor, with rare wisdom and perception, drew attention to the fact that not only was no one harmed - certainly no customers complained - but Washington grapes were separated from Idaho by a mere "200 yards of water" (a river). What difference does that make? This the editor asked and then replied, "None."
There was more, much more, but why my raspberries here for Symms? Because the winery ran a series of very plain-spoken, informative and almost full-page expensive ads in several valley newspapers, some of which hate Symms' political guts. The ads were to explain (and did) the big wine controversy. But no ad at all was purchased in the only newspaper (Ontario) to take Ste. Chapelle's side openly, forth rightly and with great humor and insight.
So much for the way conservatives support their supporters. Ho. Ho. Ho.
More Election Roses and Raspberries
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
October 26, 1986
With this column's "roses and raspberries" last week we had so much fun and friendly comments from readers I am wondering if I slipped up somewhere. In any event, election time is almost here, so hold your nose and we'll have one more go-round giving, mostly, the raspberries.
Roses for those many (if not enough) dedicated volunteers who go out night and day, mostly without pay, to install yard signs, bumper stickers and literature for their favorite politicians be they Democrat, Republican, write-in or whatever. At least they care.
Raspberries for most of those candidates whose pamphlets "explaining" their positions could easily be used just as well by their opponents if only the candidates' names were interchanged. Too often both sides are for mom, apple pie, the flag and promise the moon to everybody and his dog - all at somebody else's expense, of course.
Raspberries to gubernatorial aspirant Cecil Andrus, the old pro who refused, with one exception, to publicly debate his opponent, David Leroy. Some pretty low regard for the intelligence of Idaho voters, most of whom want more and better debates.
Raspberries to Marjorie Moon for her adamant refusal to debate C.L. "Butch" Otter. She has about one thing and one thing only going for her against Otter for lieutenant governor and that is name familiarity; hence the public's "right to see" (and hear) a debate can just go to hell. Or so she would seem to be saying.
Raspberries to liberal Gov. John Evans and conservative U.S. Sen. Steve Symms for giving Idahoans a clear choice in their hotly-contended race for the Senate. In almost every single political issue Evans advocates more government and Symms advocates less. This race could well decide whether Reagan will maintain his hairbreadth GOP majority in the Senate. Seeing that the U.S. government is far more than bankrupt, that "hairbreadth" has all but turned into mere dandruff.
Roses to those media types who complain of political action committees (PACs) raising the price of elections to extreme highs.
Raspberries to most of those same media moguls who advocate more and more power for the politicians each year, which is exactly what causes the price of politics to skyrocket in the first place. These same jokers, for some strange reason, never did complain about the left-wing PACs (AFL-CIO) who have for decades been putting massive sums of money into left-wing political causes.
Raspberries to KAID-TV, whose federal broadcast license is held by the State Board of Education, for going retromingent (look it up) on their original announcement to air Accuracy in Media's (AIM) one-hour show: Vietnam - The Impact of Media. Approximately 100 other PBS stations have agreed to air the conservative show.
Raspberries to the Idaho Statesman for publicly endorsing both the right-to-work (vote yes on Referendum 1) issue to be voted on Nov. 4 and conservative candidate C.L. "Butch" Otter for lieutenant governor. This could set the conservative movement back into a tizzie from which they may never recover. Heaven forbid if that same paper should also endorse Steve Symms. It could well deny his most viragos supporters their most hated political "hissing" post.
Raspberries for Boise's Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry (IACI). Their disinformation rating system on state legislators gives honors via two of their highest ratings (92 percent each) in the House of Representatives to both the super-conservative Gene Winchester and the super-liberal Janet Hay. For what it's worth, both are Republicans. Small wonder so many businessmen are accused of trying to "have it both ways."
Roses to whoever said, "Don't vote - it only encourages them." But roses in a special vase to the tycoons in IACI for yet another reason - "not to vote," i.e., it doesn't make much difference - does it?
Lord, Protect Us from our Friends
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
November 2, 1986
Father forgive me for I am about to commit another conservative sin. I am about to be critical of the financial "bible" of American capitalism, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Why now? Because election time is just around the corner and truth in labeling is being outraged in that newspaper's so-called reporting of Idaho's hottest political race, i.e., conservative U.S. Sen. Steve Symms versus liberal Gov. John Evans.
The media in Idaho insist on referring to the Symms-Evans race as a "mud-slinging" contest as if both candidates were equally guilty, but examination of the facts proves otherwise. The mud they refer to generally has only one source, namely, Evans.
The latters' reference to the Symms' family winery in the recent grape controversy was as though the whole Symms family was motivated only by "greed" (Evans' word). It was, of course, slinging mud at best, but even that was exceeded by Evans' repetition of the charge first leveled at Symms by the widow of the late Sen. Frank Church who was defeated by Symms six years ago. The charge by Mrs. Church was that Symms was an admitted friend of the world-wide terrorist, Moammar Kadhafi, the Libyan dictator. Below the belt type of mud if ever there was any, but no suggestion, let along a demand, from the press for Evans to apologize.
Comes now the Wall Street Journal, which is most often referred to by conservatives as one of only a handful of dependable national newspapers friendly, at least most of the time, to their causes and candidates. Not so, at least in their news pages which are pretty much the same as the super liberal New York Times. It is true, however, that the editorial page of the WSJ is very free market and free enterprise if not downright conservative. Hence few people suspect the WSJ of anything but having a "clean Gene" news machine. Still, there's less there than meets the eye.
In a news story in the WSJ's Oct. 28 issue staff reporter David Shribman writes such an insidiously smooth "job" on Symms that most conservatives will likely feel they got good treatment. This is especially so considering the press usually gives conservatives the shaft.
In a soft-spoken tone Shribman says: "Symms was swept into office in the Reagan landslide of 1980, instead of: "he defeated Church ... etc." Consequently the 1980 win should be seen with little actual merit to Symms.
While Symms stresses the freedom of choice side of right-to-work (RTW) Shribman quotes Idaho's U.S. Sen. Jim McClure's rather dull-witted, but accurate statement that RTW is a "bad political issue for us." Symms, of course, favors RTW and Evans hates it. Rather clever innuendo using McClure's unguarded remark.
In an apparent attempt to sound balanced the WSJ writer tells Evans' side of the issues too, of course, but on RTW he is remarkably silent on the super-obvious part of Evans' side of RTW, i.e., Evans sided with the out-of-state labor unions who vetoed the Bunker Hill silver mine workers vote to take a pay cut to save their jobs. This forced the mine to close down killing 1,200 Idaho jobs.
Shribman's article could easily have been worse, but such is the insidious skill of so many news people. Nine out of 10 readers do not see through the clever omissions about principle, many of which may be from stupidity rather than malicious intent on part of the reporters.
The WSJ reporter relates: "Ultimately, the major issue (between Evans and Symms) is Symms himself ..." But nothing could be further from the truth and this type of pragmatism-only innuendo from the pen of a WSJ staff reporter who should, and probably does, know better.
Here's what I mean: After a few colorful, even friendly, examples of Symms' style of demonstrating what Evans claims is Symms' "oddball ideas" such as "we should be bombing them (Cuba) with Sears and Roebuck catalogs" and "... but I'm out there on the fringe with Ronald Reagan," Shribman quotes Evans' claim that he (Evans) is "no wild-eyed liberal."
Oh yes Evans is, especially his policies are, wild-eyed liberal, but WSJ readers are supposed to infer from Shribman that it is only Symms that is a "wild-eyed" anything.
How do I know? Shribman identifies the negative Evans, the real mud-slinger, as pro-Reagan in many ways (Egad) and "a serious man with the mien (demeanor) of a country surgeon." Ho ho ho.
It Could Have Been Worse
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
November 9, 1986
Of all the candidates and issues on the ballot last Tuesday the controversial big-name ones were, of course, Symms-Evans for U.S. Senate, Andrus-Leroy for governor, Otter-Moon for lieutenant governor and right-to-work, for or against compulsory unionism. None of these choices, I hasten to add, were perfect, so if you are not content, well then, join the club. Neither am I.
But it could have been worse. Of the four mentioned above, most of my friends got three out of four and that "ain't too shabby" as the saying goes. I hope both the Democrat socialists and the GOP fascists will now be willing to exercise their good taste and manners so we can get on with good cheer. But that's another subject for another day.
Toward that end and to furnish those caring souls at least a little analysis here's my contribution of roses and raspberries.
Raspberries to those Republicans, mostly moderates by the way, who have been saying all along that the RTW was hurting the GOP and never should have been on the ballot. Neither should taxes then, nor deficit spending, abortion, whiskey, sin or national defense. It seems these folks who have long been soft on RTW know only the management-versus-labor side of it. That's a tougher case to make.
They should have looked into the moral side of being free to choose, then taken the moral high ground. Good people see the RTW issue on both sides, but the GOP moderates should be red-faced now and wish their candidate's percentage of the popular vote was as high as the RTW's - 54 percent plus.
Roses for Nampa's political activist and real estate broker (i.e., non-candidate) Ken Young, whose advise early on was just about the most insightful of all when he said, "Maybe we should vote the RTW down, then have the Legislature pass it again, put it on the ballot as a referendum again, then get the East Coast-based labor unions to ship another trainload of money into Idaho. That kind of big dough can't help but stimulate the state's economy - and we could sure use it."
Raspberries for Lt. Gov. David Leroy for letting the press trap him into saying he'd veto the RTW. Apparently he said if it came up in the future he'd veto it, provided the people defeated it on the ballot Nov. 4. (It received more votes than most of the popular candidates, i.e., those who took sides on anything gutsy at all).
Roses to that same Leroy who took an under-dog position for governor and almost won. Rep. George Hansen's "squeaker" was, of course, much closer, but it was by no means an ordinary or similar race.
Raspberries for the timid souls who resent the politician''s excessively long campaigns between the primary and general election. These lost souls have their ball games on TV interrupted too often by the "Sen. Foghorns" and "Rep. Painless Promising Pauls" of the world. Sometimes the latter raise public-policy questions about life too tough for easy answers. This embarrasses the TV and beer-busting "feel-gooders," many of whom can't carry on an intelligent dialogue about anything but the price of government golf-course fees or hunting and fishing licenses on the government lands. These folks then want to shorten the time allowed for politicians to campaign.
It could be done just the opposite; that is, the time should be extended to an even longer period of campaigning and debates. This way people would eventually get a bellyful of politics and demand the politicians get clear out of their lives instead of in deeper.
Another virtue of extending the time for campaigning would be that those phony candidates' superficial rhetoric, of which there is far too much, would then tend to show up more plainly even to the dull-witted voters.
Faced with longer campaigns, the media could then schedule the same amount of publicity over a longer time thus leaving more space in the paper and more time for uninterrupted ball games, TV murder and mayhem and soap operas.
Raspberries for those short-memoried souls who want to pass yet another law hoping to put a ceiling price on the amount of money "we" could spend on political candidates. This is the same wage- and price-control mentality they used back during Prohibition and the days of bath-tub gin. Egged on by the media we keep pushing more and more power on the politicians and then wonder why their "price" goes up. Egad.
Roses for the great Frederic Bastiat who wrote, "The art of politics is getting money from the rich and votes from the poor - under the guise of protecting each from the other."
Capitalist Cuisine, Par Excellence
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
November 16, 1986
It has been said there is no man without fame except in his own back yard. Well, so it is also with some of the institutions in a small city such as Caldwell. The Saratoga Hotel is just a fine example and the whole city's population is much the richer for all the old hotel's history, too, whether we realize it or not.
Certainly there are many folks hereabout who do recognize how much fun it is to go out to dinner there and enjoy the fine food, wine, spirits and service we have come to expect from them at the hotel, especially since it has been owned and operated by the Rev. Gene Hemenway. His absolutely top-notch assemblage of excellent food preparers, friendly and competent waiters and waitresses rival in fair fashion the trainload of unique and interesting antiques gathered there from both this country's and Europe's colorful bygone days.
But it is another less-apparent side of Caldwell's interesting Saratoga Hotel to which this writer has been wanting to draw attention and that is what a tremendous asset that particular facility is to the city of Caldwell, its citizens and especially the business and professional people who make their living here. My guess is, here is another of many assets right under our noses that too many people tend to take for granted. This particular kind of an enterprise is perhaps more easily taken much too lightly by a community.
In addition to the employment that Hemenway's entrepreneurship furnishes for several families, there is also Floyd May, one of the most fascinating and talented piano artists it has been my pleasure to enjoy anywhere in the whole country. I don't know exactly how many years Floyd has been playing at the Saratoga, but those several years are enough to have made him virtually a "natural resource" of our fair city. This fellow not only has talent running out all over and filling the place with good music and good listening (I do believe he can play almost any piece ever written), but he does it as if it were his ultimate mission in life to make you - right then and there - the happiest person in the whole world. I have never met a person so genuinely committed in trying to entertain and make people happy through his music. Of course he gets paid for being the real person that he is in the music-man business, but whatever the pay may be, it isn't enough.
By that, I mean our mayor and City Council should declare an annual "Appreciate Floyd May Day" and give him the key to the city. No kidding! This delightfully talented, unassuming and most-decent man is indeed a natural resource of Caldwell even though his regular occupation as an accountant for a large trucking company requires him to live in neighboring Ontario, Ore., and drive the 35 miles to and from there each evening for our listening pleasure. What a guy! What a place to dine and drink (moderately), i.e., that's what makes it a great "asset," of course, to our city.
As an interesting aside, there are other historical assets of which the Saratoga can boast, not the least of which is the very room in which the infamous Harry Orchard, assassin of the late Gov. Frank Steunenberg, stayed while plotting his dastardly deed. Few residents will remember Orchard's bomb was planted on the gate to the fence surrounding the Steunenberg home, then on 16th Avenue between Dearborn and Everett streets, right here in Caldwell. The governor had called out the National Guard to stop the labor-union violence in north Idaho and the union big shots, Heywood and Pettibone (allegedly) hired Orchard to kill him for that. By the way, "Big Bill" Heywood was ultimately honored with burial in the wall of the Kremlin in Moscow, USSR, for his service to the "workers of the world." Steunenberg's statue, although seldom mentioned or even referred to by today's media or intelligentsia, stands in all its splendorous silence directly across the street from the Idaho Capitol. (Methinks it should be moved to Caldwell). But that's another real story for another day.
Surely the residents and business and professional people of Caldwell have other "assets" even more important perhaps than the Saratoga. But none will be more genuinely a capitalistic (forgive me for that word, Gene) assets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars of good will for our Chamber of Commerce's efforts. It's also far better and more remarkable than anything of which Boise can boast.
Next time you want to give some friends a special treat and boost your own city's many honest-to-goodness and first-class assets, take them out to the Rev. Hemenway's Saratoga Hotel, Caldwell's very own bastion of free enterprise. And, who knows, maybe we will make a convert out of the liberal, but nice, rascal (Hemenway) in the process. After all, he is also now a proprietor as well as a liberal - and sooner or later he has got to see the contradiction.
In any event, my hat's off to him for helping bring business to my town.
Looking at Caldwell's Woes
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
November 23, 1986
Much speculation is taking place these days among Caldwellites on account of what many see as downtown deterioration. In fact, some see the several vacant buildings down there as some sort of disaster area.
Maureen Cegnar Jackson, dynamic and perceptive Chamber of Commerce executive manager, tells us that if one evaluates the vigor of Caldwell business by the number of hookups to the electric power monopoly, Idaho Power Co. (a traditional and reliable barometer), business is better than in several years. There are of course other indicators not all of which are red hot, some sad as heck, but some business has even left Nampa, with whom the perennial comparison is made, and moved to Caldwell.
All of which is not to say that our fair city has not lost much of its entrepreneurship, trading spirit, if you like, that it used to enjoy well above Nampa for many decades. It is to say that the many differences of opinion one hears from concerned and intelligent Caldwell citizens was not obvious but long overdue.
Some of said opinions were laced with colorful language and metaphors suggesting a gamut from malice to stupidity. Still, a Chamber of Commerce or typical high school cheerleader's type mentality is hardly adequate for generating the kind of investment, risk and hope of reward so necessary for growth and "Jobs for Caldwell." So, then, what is it and how does one find that so far elusive quality or ingredient or attitudinal state of mind that many say is so short if not altogether missing in Caldwell?
If one starts a textbook case in pursuit of economic education or psychology today the answers are more often found in the back (not the front) of the chapter. The questions, rather, are often mixed with some more or less relevant observations in the front of the chapter which might be helpful in our spotlighting some prior mistakes and/or oversights. So maybe these can be helpful in avoiding our making the same old errors over and over again.
Not everyone will agree. Don't try to agree or disagree entirely, just weigh the items I am going to try to outline in this column in the next few weeks in an effort to throw a bit of light on how Caldwell got this way.
If it seems a little too negative from time to time, as I'm sure it will, bear with me for there is in the course of human events both the donut and the hole and who is to say which is the most important, especially for purposes of identification, i.e., a kind of a road map out of our swamp, so to speak, or even a tool with which we may learn how to drain it.
For beginners, it was only last week at the Chamber of Commerce's development committee meeting when Bob Vernon, manager of the local office of Idaho Power, noted with both a sort of a wry grin and a sigh of resignation that his company had just "celebrated" the first anniversary of the opening of its new Canyon Service Center, an approximately $500,000 installation from which it services the entire county electric delivery system.
Vernon said it may be helpful to note that it took the company eight years to locate and secure the necessary planning and zoning permits, variances and to meet government regulations, etc., etc., required before proceeding with the absolutely perceivable and necessary installation.
Let me hasten to add that Vernon meant no harm to anyone in particular nor even any ill will, but merely to note that maybe this little scenario is at least some indication why our neighboring little community of Fruitland has recently been so successful in getting three or four rather large businesses to locate in their town rather than in Caldwell.
Factors other than planning and zoning were, no doubt, instrumental in these plants choice of location and many dedicated and energetic efforts of many concerned Caldwellites went into the unsuccessful pursuit of these companies to invest in Caldwell.
But it is also helpful to remember back several years ago that when our then "high chieftess" of zoning and planning, Mrs. Marilyn Bauman, was busily engaged in "making way" for just where future companies could legally locate their commercial enterprises in our city, a local real estate broker tried several times in vain to make a suggestion to the nice lady planning czar.
Orville Collins, the above-mentioned real estate broker, told this writer that he virtually "begged" the lady planner (Mrs. Bauman) to allow a couple of Caldwell real estate men (I'm not sure there were any lady real estate merchants here in business at that time) to serve on "her" planning committee. Her answer, and I have no reason to think she wasn't as sincere as she thought she could be, was to the effect: "Nothing doing! You people have a vested interest, since you are in the real estate business." Jumpin' catfish!
A Good Idea Softened to Death
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
November 30, 1986
This is the second column of a series trying to look into the so-called demise of downtown Caldwell.
To those cheerleaders whose only cry is, "Let's not be negative now, we must all be positive etc., etc.," ad nauseum. I say, balderdash! Howinheller we to find our way out of the swamp if we don't know why and, more or less precisely, how it was that we got that way? So it is in that spirit I submit this series in general, and in particular the little story that follows. It concerns a kind of downtown myopic envy.
About a decade or so ago Caldwell suffered a bad fire downtown. It was in the original location of the Coast-to-Coast store on Main Street which was once the heart of a thriving community center, but was by 1970 fast approaching a high speed low. The downtown was by no means dead, but Main Street was also in no shape to withstand another vacant store not to mention one burned, blackened and boarded up.
You may remember the store was located half way up the north side of Main between what is now the Asia Cafe and what was then Williamson Self Service Furniture, for many years a fine place to trade. The Coast-to-Coast store soon moved across the street and up a few doors to larger quarters leaving behind a frightful eyesore owned by a man in western Oregon. It stood empty, perhaps understandably, for a long, long time.
Finally, two entrepreneurial and life-long businessmen of Caldwell purchased that burned-out building on Main Street with the express intent of trying, as the saying goes, to make a buck.
One of the businessmen, if I may, was yours truly, Ralph Smeed. The other was temporarily unavailable for comment and hence I did not get permission to use his name. (Take my word for it, he is a nice fellow, respected, likes money and free enterprise, and faced with any chance of success at all, will put his money where his mouth is.)
Ever-so-many events and personalities played a real and significant part in the saga of Main Street and downtown Caldwell, so one can only feel sad that each cannot be fully chronicled right here and now, but space limitations herein being what they are, suffice it to say I was the spokesperson, however good or bad, to try to sell our "plan" (forgive me) to renew Main Street. It was a private plan, but it did take some sense of community and/or enlightened self-interest to make it work.
Now then, other enlightened and perceptive businessmen in both their private capacity and as members of the Chamber of Commerce had already secured the unused property from the Union Pacific Railroad located directly behind our burned-out "store" and built an excellent paved parking lot for, of course, autos. While said lot had been used for several years it had almost never been even half full. With this in mind my partner and I made a proposal.
We proposed to dedicate virtually free of charge, mind you, eight feet of our building's (the roof did not burn) 25-foot width for use as a public sidewalk clear through from the center of that block on Main Street directly into the aforementioned, practically new, but only slightly used parking lot.
Now then, one need not be an intellectual giant to see that a big part and, admittedly only a part, of downtown's problem has for decades been inadequate and inconvenient parking.
Well, we thought we had a winner. We could have had a Main Street mini-mall so-to-speak, i.e., modest enough it was true, but low cost and private, too, as anything involving public sidewalks, etc., can usually be. It would have to be lighted, of course, and some measures would have been necessary to have the city or some non-profit entity own the passageway (free, remember) to preclude the likelihood of the plethora of perennial liability lawsuits we've come to expect.
Smeed and his greedy capitalistic pal would wind up owning space for two or three modest-sized shop locations in a passageway "crossroads" where, hopefully, would pass increased traffic of potential customers walking conveniently to and from other good places to trade on Main Street, then back to their parked cars.
As the spokesperson for this idea or concept, if you will, I freely admit to being perhaps not the best salesman in the world. But few will guess what the response was both at City Hall and at the businessmen's association to whom we spoke. "We" meaning one man, Gale Burns, then manager of M.H. King Variety Store (a whole block away) who was super-enthused and did his darndest to promote the idea.
We both failed - miserably - but later agreed - "they" sort of enjoyed sitting on their hands. Why? Could it be envy? Obviously somebody stood well in line to make a profit? There was no apparent opposition, mind you. Their eyes just seemed to glaze over, but the expression on their faces made little noise. More like the man in the soap factory who fell in the lanolin vat and softened to death.
AG Roads a Means to More Prosperity
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
December 7, 1986
This column is third in a series on how Caldwell got that way or, if you'd rather, just how did Caldwell become afflicted with the compelling urge to "shoot itself in the foot." Starting years ago it seems to persist.
While it is true that our fair city has always had its Chamber of Commerce Agriculture Committee, and this writer has for many of those years been a willing member of it, the fact is that seldom has the main body of the Chamber membership and downtown mentality paid anything more than lip service to farming. In fact, had it not been for the University of Idaho Extension Service's county agents and the 4-H Club there would scarcely have been enough attendance at the meetings to wad a shotgun.
Why? Well, one supposes like a lot of other things we tend to take farming for granted. Caldwellites enjoy their farmer friends with whom they are personally acquainted, but the others have always come to town because, for instance, Claude Miller (late president of the independent First National Bank) was a damn good banker, or Caldwell was easily the farm implement center of the valley having more of such dealership stores than any other city in the whole valley.
Yet, a typical merchant attitude was not unlike the service station operator of West Virginia: "What do I care about the coal mining industry and their dirty employees? I sell gasoline."
Of course there were important exceptions and there still are, but they are few in number and, worse yet, the success of the Chamber's Agricultural Committee has usually been measured by its attendance rather than its accomplishments at making available goods and services to which farmers and ranchers would be attracted and thus bring their purchasing power to town.
A case in point, but one which gets far too little emphasis in our city, is good farm-to-market roads over which agri-businessmen must haul their crops to town. For some strange reason this condition still escapes the attention of most of Caldwell's interested citizens. Certainly a farm-to-market road is as good as a factory, but too many of Caldwell's "intellectual giants" seem to feel brains are measured only by intelligence quotient (IQ) and how large of a federal grant they can get for recreation, etc.
Many years ago this writer unsuccessfully spent a great deal of time and effort, along with a few bucks by the way, to try to promote a good farm-to-market road from Emmett to Caldwell over Little Freezeout Road past Intermountain Gas Co.'s pumping station in the Black Canyon district north of Caldwell and north of Purple Sage Golf Course, then by one of two or three possible routes into Caldwell which is or should be the Emmett area's major farm market area. Consequently Ontario enjoys the trade today.
Roads are, of course, something with which private enterprise can hardly deal in any present-day sense of the word, hence one must therefore secure public funds from the politicians and bureaucrats whose duty it is to dole them out carefully, oft-times according "to the wheel that squeaks the loudest."
Mindful of this I managed to meet twice (all by myself mind you, mostly due to lack of interest from our own Chamber of Commerce people) with Gem County's county commissioners who were unanimously enthusiastic about my interest in "their" farm-to-market road. Two delegations of Emmett area farmers came to my office in Caldwell after those meetings solely to express their appreciation and interest in the proposed improvement for the road.
Oddly enough, money wasn't the major problem. Yet, sad to say, the road straightening and upgrading never came to pass. Why?
"Merchants and others having investments in Emmett were dead set against improving said road," explained both the farmers and the commissioners. They (the merchants) felt a good road from Emmett to Caldwell would make it too easy for their Emmett customers to come to Caldwell to trade. This might hurt their day-to-day shopping trade in downtown Emmett and, indeed, it might have, at least to some degree.
But their farm customers, most of whom could not sell all their thousands of tons of produce and large numbers of livestock in downtown Emmett, needed an improved farm-to-market road into Caldwell which was and still could be their natural agribusiness center.
Even so, the Emmett city fathers were too dull-witted to the importance of the road their customers needed and wanted and should have had. With some skillful politicking and enough enthusiasm on our part we could have had that road anyway, but neither town could see it.
Methinks Caldwell can't see it - even today.
Egos Get in Caldwell's Way
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
December 14, 1986
This column is the fourth in a series attempting a little different look into downtown Caldwell and the troubles our fair city seems to be having these days. Let me hasten to add that many other cities' downtown areas are and have been in a heap of economic trouble for a long time and not all of them for the same reasons, but some of ours are too typical and still with us.
One might look briefly at what many like to call our "twin city" of Nampa and what appears to be their fine effort at saving their downtown area. This writer is told by usually reliable sources that they, too, are having no small amount of trouble in their city center, especially if one counts old empty store locations along with not-yet rented new or newly-remodeled locations made during their excellent renewal.
In any event, one has to give a pat on the back to Nampa and the entrepreneurs downtown who, hopefully in pursuit of a profit, have given a real shot in the arm to their city. Even with the aid of a government grant to improve the streets and sidewalks to help launch the project, it is and doubtless will continue to be no cinch to make their efforts pay off. I, for one, wish them lots of luck. So far, at least, the improved appearances have already furnished a welcome boost for Nampa.
In the case of Caldwell, of course, both similarities and differences come into play. One of those with which I am personally familiar is the tendency for a small town to let personal ego trips play too large a part in the moral support or lack of it whenever some businessperson or entrepreneur launches a project or sticks his or her neck out in an effort to launch one.
Now then, on the important matter of moral support or lack of it and how it affected what turned out to be a tremendously beneficial project for Caldwell, I have some first-hand knowledge which may be useful in the future.
Some years ago I set out to propose re-routing a cross-town road artery which would one day be second only to 10th Avenue traffic in importance. Until its completion years later, North 21st Avenue stopped at its intersection with Chicago Street. Traffic northbound on 21st from the College of Idaho, Blaine Street and Cleveland Boulevard had to make a 90-degree left turn west on Chicago Street, go almost half a mile to Idaho Meat Packers' corner and then turn 120 degrees north again past Bob Nicholes' Oil Co. bulk plant on Franklin Road, thence to the top of the hill near what was to become some years later a huge Phillips 66 station and truckstop on I-84.
This lousy "dog leg" route was a circuitous and inconvenient way for traffic to get to the freeway not only from Chicago Street, the C of I, Simplot Stadium and the Canyon County Fairgrounds, but also from Caldwell's important livestock and agricultural area including but not limited to the OK Livestock Auction, Treasure Valley Livestock Auction, Purina Feed stores and several businesses serving the area's agriculture.
The reasons this writer wanted said new short-cut road to go directly north from the 21st and Chicago intersection was that (1) it was simply a natural, if there ever was one, and (2) if and when completed it would open up to access and increased traffic several acres made to order for commercial and/or industrial development and (3) the above mentioned acres were owned by me (read, for profit).
So to make a long and interesting story short, if also terribly frustrating, I set out to secure some moral support from both the Caldwell City Hall and miscellaneous private entities in Caldwell. Without some of this, one can scarcely get anything done in less than a couple of decades. This was much, much too slow in my humble opinion, so off I went to City Hall and the plan and zone committee, since permission would have to come from them to make a major road change.
I had engaged the services of a planning engineer from Boise. He was friendly with the bureaucracies, city engineers and plan and zone zealots into who we were bound to run, understandably, no matter how careful we went about our project. Our first appointment was with the planning committee, which courteously consented to hear our future plans one month hence.
But the chairman phoned me one day prior to our agreed-upon date to ask if I would mind limiting our presentation to "five minutes" inasmuch as their committee agenda had grown much larger after we had made the appointment. I told him I would not bring the engineer from Boise for any reason whatsoever for such a short time. What in heaven's name I asked, was he thinking about? He knew, generally speaking, the far-reaching and complex concepts we wanted to discuss with his committee.
Now, admittedly men of good will can misunderstand, but such was not the case this time. The chairman, believe it or not, asked me, "Just what is it you want from our group anyway, Ralph? You should know that we cannot take sides."
In response I gasped: "Nobody's side is against it. It's all on my own land. I merely want to avoid any substantial confrontation with you people later on down the road since as you know we are proposing a long-term project beneficial both to me and the city. Ho on Earth could you possibly not want to "take sides" and give it moral support?"
So went much of the attitudes fostered by committee ego trips in Caldwell - for years. And so it tends to go, too often, even today.
More on Caldwell's "Constipation'"
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
December 21, 1986
This column is the fifth and final one, for a while at least, to look at the decline of downtown Caldwell together with some of the attitudes, trends, government policies and personal opinions that may have contributed to today's less-than-happy state of affairs.
A fine case in point concerning these affairs is the course of events leading up to completion of the cross-town artery called North 21st Avenue and its extension to the interstate from Chicago Street and thence by way of the top of Canyon Hill and Highway 20.
Since this road's extension was entirely dependent on my being willing to deed 100 percent of the right of way to the city, one supposes it was unfortunate but likely that it became known as "Smeed's project" or "Smeed's road." I was glad to deed said property to the city free of charge because it was likely to add value to the remaining property as well as furnishing an excellent and needed cross-town access to Interstate 84 and Highway 20.
Space limitations preclude mentioning of but a few of the people who played key roles for the road's completion. Still, in the early stages, there seemed almost no one who even gave a hoot-in-Hades whether the road was built or not.
Certainly the first and, for years, almost the only man in town with any enthusiasm for the road was Gene Graves, a local businessman and longtime resident of Caldwell. First a little background.
Although exceptions exist, there is no deep and abiding, if curious, attitude of envy in Caldwell that has been around for decades, but may have grown in later years. This is one big reason why considerably more moral support is necessary to get some projects off the ground in our city than would otherwise be necessary.
One of these exceptions was then Mayor Nolan "Coley" Smith, also a very perceptive businessman and longtime resident of Caldwell. Encouraged by Graves, Smith saw what was easily to become one of that ear's best road additions for Caldwell's future betterment and convenience. He therefore directed the city engineer to begin preliminary designs and prepare the necessary rights of way and utility easement papers for the property owner's signature.
Finding the necessary funds to finance the venture was a long way off, as I was destined to discover. But some things could be done fairly easily and indeed were done early on.
In hindsight, I was far too optimistic in thinking we could complete construction of North 21st Avenue in three or four years even though no complicated negotiations were necessary. Only one property owner (myself) was involved, but two or three events did complicate future preparations.
First off, Smith was defeated after his second term as mayor by another businessman, Charles Carpenter, whose enthusiasm for "Smeed's road" was all but non-existent. Secondly, the rumor got around that Graves' support for the road's completion was due to his having some money invested "out there" on North 21st, hence his enthusiasm therefore was supposedly somehow unworthy.
Needless to say, the rumor was a danged lie. Graves, a well-known champion of roads around Caldwell, especially the farm-to-market kind, had never owned a dime's worth of property near North 21st, nor has he owned any since then. But the rumor did its damage, apparently serving those who started it by disinflating somewhat the public support that had at last started to balloon a little.
Fortunately for those few of us who were enthusiastic to see the road completed, there was the great Al McCluskey, founder of McCluskey's Food Commissary (and later mayor) who was then an active member of the City Council. He took up as one of his many energetic pursuits as councilman the timely completion of the North 21st extension.
Unfortunately, some of the councilmen accused McCluskey of "packing water for Smeed." Otherwise why didn't he (Smeed) come down here to the council and "talk to us himself?" Well, I had indeed talked more than once to each councilman individually, but when McCluskey explained this they replied: "Maybe so, but he has never talked to us as a group." Egad!
So much for little people's little observations when they cannot think of anything else to say. So far as I know it wasn't particularly malicious, just dumb. Needless to say, again, I went to see the August body therein assembled as a group and then they seemed quite satisfied and formally endorsed the project's completion. Maybe it was only a little ego trip.
But the best story, unbelievable perhaps, yet maybe the most helpful of all in this series on Caldwell's seeming intellectual constipation, came after Mayor Carpenter's defeat following his four-year term as the city's leader. He had almost single-handedly stalled completion of the North 21st Avenue during his four years.
Asked by a mutual friend of his and mine: "Charlie, why did you fight extending North 21st? It was a good project."
"Yeah," he replied, "but one man stood to benefit an awful lot."
Take heed, Caldwell's good people, intellectual constipation is a contagious disease - and it's still with us. But so is envy, and who knows? Maybe Carpenter - not a bad man - actually represented the dominant attitude in the city.
Public Education Wants More
By Ralph Smeed
Idaho Press-Tribune
December 28, 1986
The Caldwell Chamber of Commerce committee on governmental affairs had an interesting and controversial guest recently. It was State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jerry Evans, former superintendent of the Caldwell School District.
Evans made himself famous some years ago in Idaho school circles when he lived in Caldwell championing something loosely referred to as equal funding for schools. This writer had many friendly,l if vigorous, arguments with Evans back then concerning whether or not one could rationally consider proper amounts for funding government schools until one first came to grips with the values and curriculum the schools should teach.
Well, Evans is not a bad man, nor is he an unintelligent one. In fact, he is doing pretty much what his peers expect, i.e., to protect and promote their bureaucracy called public education.
In his speech before the Chamber of Commerce committee, he said they were going to begin "emphasizing values." He went on to explain the criticism the school system gets because they do not "teach values" and then the almost equal criticism they get for "not teaching values." One can, of course, sympathize with Evans because so much depends on whose values one teaches.
This quite understandably accounts for our country's valuable heritage of private schools which has served us so very well for most of America's history. Government schools have largely replaced this fine and diverse heritage with "free" education at taxpayers' expense and, for the most part, priced well below cost.
So keen was the nation's desire to lift itself up by their bootstraps after World War II, they installed a voucher system entitled the G.I. Bill for "free" higher education for almost everybody - at least for all veterans who wanted it.
Well, the rest is history. Except that many people are beginning to say, "maybe we've got a bear by the tail." Maybe the government's massive subsidies to education has done the same thing to schooling as that same government has done to the nation's farmers. In an effort to be helpful, many people are suggesting, perhaps the government's attempt to help agriculture by way of endless subsidies may instead be destroying it. Certainly both agriculture and education are in deep, deep trouble.
Evans rather brightened the committee members' day with his cheerfully brief and upbeat story about values, one supposes, such as thrift, frugality, honesty, work ethics, cleanliness, respect for other people and their property, etc., etc. Wonderful! So far, so good, except here comes the other shoe: He wants another $42 million on top of the 75 percent of the state's entire budget which he now gets. My guess is that Evans perceives it as his job to ask for and try to make the case for more and more subsidies for government schools.
Indeed, most educators are adamant in their unwillingness to even consider the devastating effect these massive state and federal infusions of capital are having on non-government schools.
Comes now one of the nation's most prestigious business and financial magazines. Forbes magazine, while a little bit liberal, is still one of the best known publications of its kind in the world.
The front cover of its Dec. 29, 1986, issue is a school blackboard complete with chalk, eraser and question for the day to the students written thereupon in teacher-like fashion: "Are we spending too much on education?"
Forbes has dared to ask the question that almost nobody dares to ask: "What kind of clothing does our emperor wear?" To which Forbes in a crushingly clear and forthrightly fair five-page article replies: "Why, the emperor has no clothes." These are my words, paraphrased, of course, not Forbes'.
But it asks the question that's been too long buried too deep by the educational lobby in almost every state capitol in the U.S. and in the nation's capitol. How much is too much spending for education and what are we getting - really now - for all that spending? It's a great article. Get a copy at the library, if necessary,l and photocopy it.
While I'm glad Idaho has Jerry Evans and I consider him a valued friend, he nevertheless knows what side he's on; namely, the government's school bureaucracy. In that bureaucracy, by far the most gigantic in the state, by the way, is ivory towered the state's true "religion" - education. Two of its high priests, Evans and Boise State University (BSU) President John Keiser, virtually excommunicated arrogantly and summarily from their government "church" two BSU economics professors.
What was the professors' sin? They had asked, publicly, of course, for the state to accept a free market in education.
The good news? One of those professors, believe it or not, will be speaking at the Chamber of Commerce in Caldwell next Jan. 7 at high noon. Let us pray.
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The Pragmatic Side of Principle in Pursuit of Public Policy
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